Forging Ahead

(OK, this picture is at least a little cool. This was at Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh when I was backpacking in '09.)

I'm restarting this blog for what I hope will be a life-changing next 6 months.

I thought long and hard about what to title this next evolution of my blog and got stuck with one word.

forge/fôrj/

Verb:

Make or shape (a metal object) by heating it in a fire or furnace and beating or hammering it. Move forward gradually or steadily.

This would be a time where I would forge a new path, off the common road. After spending a year and a half working in market research and being afraid that I'd wake up 30 years-old one day and discover that I had settled and become complacent, I realized that my dream career did not exist and that I would have to create it.

Forge it.

Like a machete-wielding Indiana Jones. Or a submarine-adventuring Captain Nemo.

I'm both excited and nervous about the prospect of going off the beaten path and, God willing, forging not just a new path, but perhaps a new me as well. Excited because for the first time in my life, I have the freedom and ability to pursue the things I love most (more on that later). Nervous because like any other finely-crafted metal product, I expect the product of my pathfinding to be forged with fire and adversity. I can already see a few potential flare-ups. Running out of money. Malaria. Losing/breaking equipment. Getting robbed. Diarrhea. Getting lost.

But hopefully, success or failure, I'll come out the other end and be able to say that I tried.