I’ve spent most of my 30 years on this planet trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life. My first job was at 17, serving food at a wedding catering company. I liked it enough. After that, I worked at McDonald’s and Subway so I could save for a solo trip to South Korea when I turned 18.
That trip changed me in ways I didn’t understand at the time. I still remember standing in a tiny shop in Seoul, talking to the owner aunties in a mix of my broken Korean and their broken English. We laughed about my life, my trip, my terrible pronunciation and somehow, without speaking the same language, we understood each other perfectly. It was one of the first moments I realized how big the world really is, and how much of it I wanted to experience.
After Korea, I shipped off to Navy bootcamp and became a Gas Turbine System Technician. When I got out, I worked as an Organized Crime Investigator for a private company while studying for my marketing degree. During university, I picked up other side gigs like camera operator on film sets, delivering newspapers, painting houses. I’ve done a little bit of everything.
And yet, after all those jobs, I still couldn’t answer the question that’s been following me my whole life.
How do I build a life where I make my own opportunities and actually do the things I dream about?
Because the truth is, I enjoyed all the odd jobs I’ve done, but I never dreamed of them. I dream of sailing my tiny boat with my dogs across the ocean to the tropical waters of the Philippines. I dream of helping communities in far‑off places with housing and food scarcity. I dream of raising children who feel free to exist anywhere on this planet without fear or limitation.
These are the things that keep me up at night not how I’ll spend the rest of my short life making someone else rich.
Living on a tiny sailboat taught me something no job ever did: freedom is worth designing your life around.
Sailing Dog House 
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