We’re moving to Europe today. Here’s how (and why) that happened.

Can you be too busy with small change to notice the big change?

You’re working hard, but are you occasionally looking up to see where you are?

Oops, we’re moving our family to Europe today.

It’s go go go, but are you making progress? If you are, are you taking notice?  Are you measuring your progress? Does it matter?

• Packing, purging and preparing.
• Canceling, checking and collaborating.
• Directing, doing and done.

Work work work. You know you’re doing your best. Head down, butt in chair (or butt wherever it’s supposed to be) and you’re powering away. You’re working hard and not hardly working. How do you when you arrived? How do you know when you can at least slow down? Get it out of first gear and move it into second? Or maybe even cruise control?

“What gets measured gets improved.”
― Robin S. Sharma, The Greatness Guide: Powerful Secrets for Getting to World Class

Today we are moving our family to Europe. I’m sure this sounds grand and glorious and life-altering and, well, it is. But I write this today because I need to remember that we got us here. I’m not writing this to satisfy the nay-sayers, to appease those who think it’s just a cake walk. I’m writing this today to remind myself that I’ve been working part time for months and full time for weeks (and weeks) to make this happen.

We didn’t get transferred with our job. We’re not moving to care for a sick relative (in fact, we’re partly moving to care for a healthy relative. We’re moving because we want to.

I wake up and I pack. I’m go to sleep and I strategize about how to cancel our phone lines without losing our phone numbers. I dream about whether or not I should bring the notes that three editors scrubbed on my manuscript about a love story through Africa that I wrote more than ten years ago.*

We moved out of our house, I dissolved my corporation and yesterday I sold our car. There’s a saying that goes something like: in the equation of ham and eggs, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. I think we’re somewhere in between.

I want this move to happen. No, I need this move to happen. It’s no longer just what we’re doing, it’s who we are.

I’m a front-row activist in the Change is Good nation. I want my family to grow, to fall down and get up and be stronger when they do.

I want them to learn and be curious and see the world–even if they have their eyes closed. Yes, I will absolutely drag them to many (no, many) places they won’t want to go. But they’re kids, they’re supposed to be dragged to places they don’t want to go, that’s what parents are for. I want them to see what’s in the world so that they can choose where they want to be in it.

I want them to know enough so that they can decide using their heads, but I want them to experience enough so that they can decide with their hearts.

I want my family to go through hard times so that we learn from them, rise up and are the better for it. To see how others live to understand how (and why) we live.

I want my family to experience the elation of success and travel and laughing and learning.

Travel is change. Travel can be small change as you walk around your block and talk to a new neighbor. Travel can be big change when you get on an airplane and go where you haven’t gone before.

Travel is education at it’s finest. You’re learning while seemingly doing nothing. Unless you close your eyes, your ears and your mind, you pretty much have to learn, to experience, to live.

Traveling with your family is more important than eating green beans. It’s important because it’s hard. It’s important because not everyone does it, but everyone should. It’s important that you do it.

Small steps can lead to big change, but it’s not a mathematical equation. There’s an element of persistence, and a healthy serving of passion.

I feel I’m living my mantra, “Impossible is an opinion. Possible is a choice. Repossible is a mindset.”

You have the choice. It’s up to you.

Today, we’re making the choice.

* I will.