This year, I was “relieved” of my position.  I knew I was going to leave corporate; my tentative “thought” was five years from now.  I planned to write until then, and finally leave.  I had HAD it.  After fifteen  years of working 80 to 100 hours a week, having no life, no close friends to spend time with, no personal life, no time for hobbies, etc, I wanted to have time to build a real life.  A life that I could enjoy; a legacy.

I wanted to have a life where, should I die in my house, it wouldn’t take three weeks before someone noticed that I wasn’t around.  I wanted to be in a situation where, should I die, the only people that would come to my funeral were my mother’s friends from Rotary and the church.

Let’s face it; my life wasn’t worth much.  My life was worth the billable rate that I made for whatever company I happened to work for at any given time.  And my life was not just about the 60 billable I did a week; my life was 24/6 on the road.  It was completely gone.  And no, it’s not all about the fabulous travel and seeing the world.  Don’t fool yourself.  Those of us who travel live in the hotel or at the client site.  We do NOT see the cities to which we travel.

There were no real relationship in my life, so I had no “priceless” value.  I didn’t have children, so I had no legacy.  Therefore, the only value in my life was monetary.  And that value was what I could bring to a company.  Considering that the value of the rest of my corporate life would have been about 10 years, my actual value in this world would amount to about 4.5M USD.  For a company.  For me, it would be worth about 1.2M USD gross.  Not much.  Especially when I have no one to give it to, and no legacy to give.

This was never what I wanted out of my life.  I have always known that.  I became what I am out of necessity; I never planned.  I just did what was the next best thing in front of me.  I could tell you that was what I had to do, but my choices put me in situations that caused me to have to do that.

So, with the opportunity to have been relieved of my position, I decided not to wait five years for my dream.

This is a frightening time for me.  But I decided that I would be just as frightened five years from now.  Doing something completely different from what I have known for the last 15 years would be scary as hell now, five years ago or five years from now.  If I had 10M USD in the bank, or 5 dollars in the bank, I would still be just as scared.

So, what will my life be worth?  Well, a hell of a lot more than it is now, or would have been.  In my twenties, it was all about money; money for security.  Now, it’s all about relationships.  How can I help you?  How can I help them?  What can I bring to the table?  How can I make things different in my little niche in the world? How can I leave my little legacy?

I realized something.  If I am not in harmony with what I am doing on a daily basis, then I am doing the wrong thing, and I will never be successful.  I am in harmony when I write.  I am in harmony when I work with animals.  Do I make a lot of money doing it?  No.  But I am in harmony, and I am happy.  And I don’t miss the money when I am happy.  Because I don’t try to use the money to fill the gap of the unhappiness.

I have friends because I am happy.  I have made more friends doing what I am doing now than I ever did in discord in corporate.  I haven’t scowled.  I have made my peace with corporate.  Amazing things for me.

I am on my way to Mexico to try to make it work down there, working on two businesses.  I will be living outside of Mexico City in the mountains.  I will get to write, and live in a beautiful house.  I am very excited.  My aunt lives there, and I already have a lot of friends.  So I am going to create my legacy, and become the person I always wanted to be.

As for grudges and who I used to be, I never want to be that person again.  I have given that up.  There’s no point in that.  It is so completely freeing to no longer engage with those who want to create discord.  It’s just no longer a priority for me.  I want to be happy; I want love in my life.  I have lived with discord for so long that those who want to live with that in their lives are no longer welcome in mine.

So, what is your life worth?  What are your feelings worth?  What are your actions worth?  Are your actions detrimental to others, causing a negative impact, or are they positive?  Where are you in the spectrum?  Or do you count the value of your life in pennies?

Here are two poems I leave you with:

The Wage
Jessie B. Rittenhouse

I bargained with life for a penny,
And life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;

For life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of life,
Life would have paid.

IF
Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man my son!