Make Decisions Based Not on What’s Expected, But On What’s Possible

This adventure, the one Maile and I began when we stood at our kitchen counter in Leesburg, Virginia and realized we were going to have to move into my parents’ basement: it’s just beginning. For the longest time I’ve been waiting for it to come to an end. I thought that after making the “right” decision, taking on writing as a career, the end was nearly in sight. As if that decision would stand as the marker of what I had done, and from then on we could work our way back into the kind of life that everyone else lives.

“Soon, my life will look like everyone else’s. Soon my unorthodox decision will pay off big and I’ll be just like everyone else.”

I am beginning to realize that what I have chosen is not a specific vocation, but a worldview. The importance of the decision we made in Leesburg was not for me to pursue writing as a career, but to pursue life in all of its exciting, scary, adventurous permutations.

This is what I hope for you. Not that you would be know as “that person who gave up their job to do what they loved to do.” As good as that sounds, and as exciting as that would be, that step is just the beginning of a wilder, deeper, richer story.

I hope that you will be known as a person who lives. Really lives. Someone who makes decisions, not based on what’s expected, but on what’s possible. Someone who does things, not because everyone else is doing them, but because it’s what you want to do more than anything else in the world.

Now that would be a life worth living.

This is a small excerpt from my E-book released this past Tuesday, entitled “Building a Life Out of Words.” Like what you’ve just read? Then go buy the E-book HERE – it’s only $3.99.

2 Replies to “Make Decisions Based Not on What’s Expected, But On What’s Possible”

  1. Shawn and Maile,

    I stayed up way too late last night reading your book. I love what I am reading and I can feel the emotions you were describing throughout what I have read so far. God bless you for allowing me to share your life.

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