The Universe Is Always Looking Out for You

Apparently, I’m supposed to be turning over a new leaf today, chasing down some resolutions. That’s what people do as a new year begins. Start anew. Launch into the year with a clean slate.

Alas, I have no resolutions.

No leaves that need turning.

I went through all of that several years ago—a cleansing, of sorts.

And today I’m living my happiest life yet.

Gotta say, the cleansing was painful at the time. Stress-filled. Laden with tears, anger, animosity. A bit of resentment. Self-pitying.

But in the end, life—the Universe—has a plan. You just gotta be open to it.

Go with the flow that life sends your way.

Probably seems an off-key dispatch for welcoming you to the new year as a Field Notes reader and/or a Global Intelligence subscriber. And maybe it is.

But new years are about, well, newness. And there’s nothing newer than chasing your dreams of a better life.

You might know my story: lost a job I love at 51. Divorced soon after. I was living alone in the house I grew up in, the house owned by my grandmother and her sister, my great-aunt. Only, both of them were then living in nursing homes in two different cities, two hours apart. I drove back and forth regularly to deal with their needs because I was the only person either of them had.

Within the span of about four months, both my grandmother and my great-aunt died. Then, my mom, who was living in India, died too.

At that point, it was truly just me.

I was living off my savings and a severance package, trying to rebuild a writing career but not really succeeding at it because my heart wasn’t in it.

I had a choice: keep living this sad and sunken existence until the money ran out… or invest in myself.

I chose the latter.

Packed up my Mini Copper with whatever it could hold, drove across country to Los Angeles, and enrolled in a screenwriting program at UCLA. I’d always wanted to write for TV and movies, and I figured I might as well give it a go before I’m dead. Dead men not only tell no tells, they write no screenplays either.

I was burning through my savings in LA, as one might expect of living in one of America’s priciest cities. But all along the way, a bit of money would fall into my lap by way of winning screenwriting contests… $5,000 here, $2,000 there. A friend, out of the blue, hired me to write copy for her company, which brought in a few thousand dollars a month for a few months.

It was the Universe looking out for me.

A lot of people look skeptically at me when I say things like that. But everyone has a faith, and my faith is in the Universe. It pulls the strings and pushes the levers needed to get us to where we need to be at the time we need to be there.

Thirteen months after moving to L.A., International Living called me. Asked me to fly to Paris for a meeting about a potential job living and working in Europe. The fact that you’re reading today’s oddly upbeat New Year’s dispatch tells you I got the job.

So, here I am, writing to you from a lovely little apartment in a lovely little beach community 45 minutes west of Lisbon, Portugal.

I’ve wanted to live overseas for the entirety of my adult life. The one opportunity I’d previously had fell apart when my now ex-wife put the kibosh on us moving to Hong Kong when The Wall Street Journal offered me that plum assignment back in 2007. 

At the time, I was upset with my wife, though I never told her so. (Probably part of the reason we ended up divorced.)

But I look back on the trajectory of my life since then and I see all the pieces that have fallen into place and that were necessary for me to end up living and working in Portugal for a company I love, married to my second wife who is the perfect compliment to me.

Again, I will say that is entirely the Universe in action.

It closed a lot of doors in my face, some painfully—like divorce, missing my kids, losing my job, the stress of dwindling finances. But those doors had to close. They forced me to turn around and look for new doors somewhere else. And the Universe showed me those doors.

In the darkest of rooms, the Universe cracked open doors to let in a narrow stream of light.

Up to me to choose to open those doors, and I did. And they’ve led me to this wonderful and happy life, doing what I love—writing about investing, writing about unique travel destinations, living in Europe, married to a woman I adore and who adores me just as much.

So what leaves do I need to turn over?

What resolutions do I need to make?

Can’t think of a single one, really. Got everything I want (well, except maybe an apartment or house that I own, but my crypto portfolio is going to afford me one—possibly this year—I’m certain of that).

So I guess that’s my New Year’s message to you: Tell the Universe what your ideal life looks like. Then, be open to the path that gets you there… painful as that path might be in the moment.

And always look behind you when a door closes.

Chances are there’s a small beam of light streaming in through the crack in another door that the Universe has opened for you. It’s beckoning you.

Open the door…

Oh, and Happy New Year!