Why I Do What I Do

I'm asked THE question on a regular basis:

"Why are you doing this?" or it's more subtle (but no less pointed) cousin "Don't you miss Canada?"

I thought I'd 'fess up in this blog. That way, the next time someone asks -- usually happens a couple of times a month -- I'll be ready with the link to this blog and he or she can go read the answer for themselves.

Beats the heck out of squirming and fidgeting like I usually do.

Anyway, the answer is a personal one and it goes something like this.

!!Boring Sappy Blog ALERT!! !!Boring Sappy blog ALERT!!

10 years ago I lost everything I had. There was this little problem with the stock market. I bet big and, as it turns out, I bet wrong. The (now ex) wife following the same trajectory shortly thereafter.

It was 2001 and it was my own personal version of 9/11.

I was about to turn 40 and I found myself back in my old room in my parents' home

• without a job,
• seriously indebted to financial institutions, and, 
• alone.

Thanks to a dear friend, I landed a job in a cubicle in a software company punching a keyboard that paid the minimum wage.

So, at 40, a

• cubicle job, 
• seriously indebted to financial institutions, and,
• still alone and sleeping in my old room in my parents' home.

It was a big, big mess.

I decided to make myself a pledge. I promised myself that if I ever got myself out of that mess financially, I would

. . . drum roll please . . . 

give it away somehow (Thinking to myself at the time, "Yeah right, you hero, so easy to make these gutsy promises from such a deep hole.")

I then made the mistake of telling someone about my pledge. In this way, I couldn't turn my back on my pledge if it ever materialized. ("Yeah, right" I repeated to myself.)

So as it turns out I hatched some fluky Internet marketing scheme and I did make that very unlikely comeback.

And being that stubborn man of my word, here I am.

In Nicaragua. Living up to my pledge.

Epilogue. As I read these words back I realize one little thing about my answer to THE question.

In 2001 I didn't lose everything I had.

Nope.

I gained everything.

And now you know why I do what I do.