Next Exit to Adventure

This Friday, I take my 4th and final section of the CPA exam. Once I pass this final test, I will be a Certified Public Accountant. Jeremy Dommu, CPA. It has a nice ring to it. And this will be the crowning achievement of my professional life to date. It will be a huge accomplishment and something I will be very proud of. It will summate all that I have done in the past 3 years and validate all the time and effort I have put in to accounting both in and out of work.

And it should be another stepping stone to success. Another mile marker on the high-way to the upper middle class. Just one more signal that I am going in the right direction. I can become a partner in my firm, I can open up my own practice, I can use this title as leverage to get into a top MBA program, to be a CFO, to work my way through a corporation to the top. I do have a plan, I do have a vision, and my future is bright. But the problem isn’t where I am going, what I want to ultimately do, or how I am going to get there. To most, that is the hard part. But for me, my future is as clear as ocean that I am not currently in.

I can envision where I will be in 5, 10, 20 years. And I like that vision. I want that vision. But, I’m not in a rush to get there. I need to exit my current path and take a break. To see and experience the world while I am still young, still single, and still can. Each day, each month, each year that passes, it will become harder and harder, if not impossible to travel, to explore, to see the world. To do all of the things that and experiences that I have always wanted to do.

Life isn’t a race to the finish. The future isn’t now. The present is now. I have always considered myself somebody who lives for the present, who doesn’t take life too seriously and who is always up for an adventure. But how can you live for the present and explore when it has always been for the past 3 years about getting from A to B to C?

You can call it a quarter life crisis because that is exactly what it is. But I don’t think there is anything wrong with taking a break, taking a year off, seeing the world in a way that I want to see it. On my path as an accountant, there will be future opportunities to take a week or two long vacation to any destination in the world. But that doesn’t appeal to me as much as having unlimited time to go wherever I want, stay as long as I want, and do whatever I want when I’m there. And I have to do this soon. Its now or never. There aren't going to be many opportunities left.

So, that is the purpose of this blog. To devise an escape plan. To execute it and take a break from responsibility, a break from being an adult, and a break from speeding down the highway towards the upper middle class. – To travel the world, to enjoy my life and to document my escape and everything that happens thereafter. Today, I sit in an office cube no longer dreaming about moving down the hall to the corner office, the fancy car, the Mc-Mansion, and the trophy wife. Today, I dream about scuba diving in Thailand, bungee jumping in New Zealand, and snow-mobiling in Chile.

I’m taking the next exit to adventure.