Dear 2023 - The Best Year of My Life

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The only way I can describe it is that I found myself traveling on a train car at hundreds of miles per hour towards a destination I was expected to arrive at, but not one that I really wanted to go to. One day in September of last year, I was sitting at lunch recalling what it was that had made me board that train in the first place - Survival/Money.

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I got on that train when I was 21 years old. I had a mortgage, a BMW, a girlfriend that liked nice things, and dreams of traveling to cool places, a super house, a super car, a super bank account, and a super stream of income.The train car I got on was in no condition to travel another 100 feet, so I began reconstructing it piece by piece. Over time, and literally working OVERTIME, the beat-up train car that hung by a thread when I boarded had cemented itself among the elite and was now a proud member of the first class. Cancun, London, Paris, Madrid, Moscow, Dubai, Singapore, Ferrari, Shelby, Gwagon, Burberry, Hermes, and Rolex. Five figures, six figures, seven figures. One by one, I began accumulating all the things I had set out to and placed them in my train car. To outsiders who caught a glimpse, it seemed like I had it all, and yet I didn’t.

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My life became stale. With nothing I wanted outside of my reach, I found myself creating new artificial goals, challenges, or obstacles for myself to feel a slight sense of accomplishment, only to create another challenge to chase as soon as that dopamine hit was gone. Every year, the train stopped for maintenance. I hadn’t gotten off in years because I was worried that the train would take off without me, and that I would lose the train car I had worked so hard on building and was so proud of. But something this year caught my attention; the landscape seemed familiar. It was the same stop we had made last year and the year before, and the year before.I was traveling in a loop, trying to hang on to the comfort I had built on the survival train.

 

This year, I got off that train and decided to let it go without me. I could’ve stayed on my whole life, but I no longer find myself with the survival needs I did when I was 21 years old.

Today, I find myself wanting to make an impact on as many people as possible. After guiding thousands of people towards homeownership as a loan officer over the years, I gave up commissions to create a free tool, @TheRateVerifier, to facilitate affordable homeownership to millions of Americans. I also wrote my pay it forward story, The Adventures of Eddie, The Moving Monkey, for my daughters, and kids all around the world to know that the best thing that ever happens to them, may be the moving adventure they least expected.