I had woken up after another 20 minute nap in a rest area along the highway. I knew the time had come to finally take the plunge.
To start blazing my own trail away from a 20+ year career in the corporate world of project management and consultancy with a steady paycheck and a pension fund at the end of the line. A year later I moved to the mountains to start working as a hiking guide. I was 45.
BUT LETS BACK UP FOR A MINUTE.
In the years leading up to my decision to move to Austria I was coming back from a serious burnout: the result of a lifetime of living up almost exclusively to other people’s expectations. Of not having any idea how I wanted to live my own life and thus living a life I thought others expected of me.
I had drastically reduced my work hours from 60+ hours/week to 36. My health had dramatically improved. I had lost weight and fulfilled a life long dream of getting a dog.
On long vacations in the Austrian Alps I fell in love with mountains and mountain hiking. The mountains felt like home and I knew someday I would live among them.
