Aaron Aiken Life outside of the box.

First, I cannot beleive that a week has already gone by since Lindsay and I unpacked our U-Haul with our good friend Bruce Brown at our new town home here in Wilmington, North Carolina. Unbelivable how fast time flies.

Last week truely was a blur. There were boxes everywhere Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Being the crazy folks that we are we had everything unpacked and in its proper place by Wednesday. Pictures hung and all. We would wake up around 8am, work at unpacking all day, break for lunch around 2pm (if we remembered), unpack more and eventually head to bed around 9 or 10 that evening. Wake up, repeat. We got it done though, and in three days!

Thursday evening we gave our first tour to Lindsay’s family via Skype Video Chat, which worked out great! Technology is going to be the key to keeping in touch with family and friends, so will writing letters, an art that Lindsay and I hope to pick up.

Friday afternoon my folks came up from Myrtle Beach to see our place and our new town. It was great to see them and to act as a tour guide to an area I hardly know!

But, after all of that I still feel like today or tomorrow I need to return the key and checkout. Pack up my suit case and head back home to cold PA. Vacation time is over. It has to be. Oh wait, this is real? We actually did this? We live in Wilmington, NC? We have a beautiful town in our backyard and the beach in our front? Really? We can stay?!

A week after our move and it doesn’t feel real yet.

I know it will eventually, but until then I’ll probably be walking around town with my mouth hanging open. And my camera clicking away like a crazy tourist.

Earlier this week I shared with you how important it is to think for yourself, make decisions for yourself, and live a happy life (hopefully that’s what you got out of that article), and today is really no different, except to say that you need to do those things on purpose.

I’m in the middle of a great book (so far) written by Andy Stanley called The Principle of the Path — How to get from where you are to where you want to be. I was living the principle of the path and didn’t even realize that what I was doing had a law attached to it…

The principle is this: if you smoke for 50 years you will most likely die from that habit. If you save money and make wise financial decisions you will retire sooner than the person who uses debt. If you you chase the Roadrunner towards the edge of the cliff and he stops before the edge but you don’t — you will fall over the other side, Mr. Wile E. Coyote.

It makes sense. Cause and Effect. Do this, get this result. A+B=C. Apply this to your life. But don’t just apply it, tweak it. Ask yourself a question.

“Where do I want to go?”

“What do I want to be?”

“Who do I want to meet?”

And then answer the question, honestly.

“Italy.”

“Race car driver.”

“the Pope.”

Question, Answer. Next, live your life to achieve these things. Make sure that every decision you make aligns with your goal (dream). If it does not align with your goal, don’t do it.

So this is what Lindsay and I did. We asked ourselves a few questions:

“Do we want to live in Harrisburg?” No.

“Well then where do we want to live?” Near the beach.

“Where’s a good beach town without a boat load of tourists?” Wilmington, NC.

Question (A) + Answer (B) = Path (C)

Now we just need to get there. Make decisions that allow us to get there. Some of the decisions were:

Leave our families behind.

Save cash upfront to cover ALL moving costs (ie - don’t eat out as much, etc).

Ditch the comfy corporate jobs (and thus a steady paycheck every two weeks).

Those are just a few examples, but I hope that you get the point. If you don’t take anything above from this article, take this: Align yourself with a purpose and pour your time, money, and energy into that purpose so that it succeeds, because if you don’t it won’t.

My wife and I are 6 days away from doing something that we have both talked about doing for years. (If you follow me on Twitter, or are a friend of mind on Facebook, I apologize for repeating myself, but you’ll still want to read this.)

We are moving to the beach.

No we are not retiring, although that would be nice, and no we have not been scammed into a time share property. We are picking up and moving away from all things familiar and heading into the wild wild south.

And no, this is not because of a job transfer. I am self employed and Lindsay will be when we get down to our new place. So if you want to look at it in the view of an employee, we are giving ourselves a transfer.

And yes our families are going to miss us (and they have made that very clear to us). And yes we are going to miss them. BUT, we are doing this move for our future, and we are doing it because we want to. Plain and simple. We want to do it. Have the means to do so. So why the heck not?

I say all of this not to brag, but to encourage you! We are young…truly, sub 25 years of age, and we are moving to the beach. If we can do it, so can you!! In another post later this week (probably Friday) I’ll share with you how we decided to move and how we made it possible, but right now I want you to know this one thing: If you are going to do something, GO ALL IN. Just do it. Don’t leave yourself an exit door to sneak out of when things get tough, push through and accomplish something that you have always wanted to accomplish!!

We are doing it, living a goal we’ve been working towards for years, and loving every minute of it!