Every year, since 2002, I’ve heard this phrase the moment I embark on my summer vacation.
And indeed, I consider myself fortunate. I have three beautiful children, good health, and a job I love. Moreover, I own a sailboat, and I dedicate two or three months of my summer to live on it full-time.
Several years ago, I was employed by a multinational corporation, performing a job I didn't find fulfilling. It was lucrative, yes, but not rewarding. I worked for this company for a dozen years, feeling like I was going backward every day.
And then, one fine day, I decided to resign.
From that point forward, I immersed myself exclusively in my current passion: website development. What started as a hobby has now become my livelihood. I made a choice.
I chose happiness. I left everything behind!
Life, at least in my case, is a perpetual compromise.
However, the one compromise I don’t make is on my freedom—the freedom to choose my own constraints.
It’s understood that I have obligations, like everyone else. As a business owner, I am accountable to my customers, suppliers, collaborators, and various levels of government. But at all times, I retain the right to decide. To decide whether I agree to work with a particular person or company, to decide if I work 15 hours today and 4 tomorrow, to decide if I work long hours during the winter to enjoy a break in the summer.
My vacation is earned, and the payment comes from me and only me. It’s paid by my 80 hours of intense work per week in winter, paid by every weekend I worked, paid by all the phone calls I answered after 10 p.m., paid for by all the sacrifices I’ve made.
So, no, it’s not just luck. It’s also about choices and a bit of courage.
Addition of September 14, 2021
I’m lucky to have a very interesting Facebook friend who hosts a show in his image: Faites du Bui (make some noise). I’m obviously talking about Jean-Simon Bui, from FM 93 in Quebec.
In short, this little article that you have just read has made its way to this show. So I did a little ten-minute interview with him.
In french only… sorry.
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