Seeing old colleagues and acquaintances building successful careers can make me second-guess my choices. Tolkien that pops up a lot on T-shirts and bumper stickers sold around town: "Not all those who wander are lost." Lately I've been mulling moving somewhere entirely opposite of here.
One of my friends from college started a little website called Pinterest.
The herd went entirely unmanaged for nearly 40 years because they weren't considered game or endangered animals, said Gibson.
It's believed the donkeys were moved to Waikaloa from Kona in the 1970s when development grew in the area, Gibson said.
John, then move to Thailand for six months to work as a dive instructor, then they will head off to Alaska and work on a fishing boat.
Living abroad has exposed me to a different approach to life, one in which you're not expected to settle in one place and do one kind of job.
I wasn't living in the moment; I was living for some indeterminate moment in the future when I'd saved enough money and vacation days to take a trip somewhere. One day I was working on my laptop, finishing some edits on a book I'd just written. Nicknamed "Love City" for its famously friendly locals, it was home to some of the most stunning beaches in the world.
Another just won an Emmy for a hit television show she created. I live in a charmingly ramshackle one-bedroom apartment on a hillside overlooking the sea.
Which brings us back to the chicken in my shower watching me pee. The scene is remarkably similar to the stock photo that was my screensaver four years ago.
I let my hands idle too long and the screensaver, a stock photo of a tropical scene, popped up. Feeling slightly ridiculous, I posted a message on Facebook saying that I wanted to move to the Caribbean, and asking for suggestions as to where I should go. The hardest part was convincing myself it was OK to do something for no other reason than to change the narrative of my life. I had no plan, no friends, and no clue how ridiculous I looked, festively ensembled in boat shoes and a dress celebrating the palm tree. But the truth is, I was happier scooping mint chocolate chip for an hour than I was making almost six figures at my previous corporate job. I met new people constantly, talking face-to-face instead of communicating via email and instant messaging.
"You can't just to a place you've never even visited! "Sometimes you just have to leap and the net will appear," I said with more confidence than I felt. Yet I had a strange feeling that everything would unfold as it was supposed to. I come from a conservative Southern family with a healthy respect for the American Dream: You worked hard in school, chose an upper-middle-class job with a 401(k) and a good matching plan. When I closed the shop at the end of the shift, my work was done and my time my own.