Throughout Alexis and I talking and scheming about our “plan” there has always been a question in the back of my mind.  “What am I going to do to make money after we leave?” Let’s be completely honest, at some point our cruising kitty is going to run out, and I am going to have to do something to make enough money to at least feed us. I am also pretty burnt out from finding solutions to the never ending list of problems. So, for me, I don’t want to continue my current career, even if it is in some tropical paradise.

It’s not an easy answer.  Alexis is very good with a computer. She can build websites, manage social media, create detailed spreadsheets, and many other things that lend themselves to freelance or remote work.  Me on the other hand, I am mechanical. Up until my current job, I used my hands and my back to make a living. Currently my day mostly consists of problem solving. How do we meet this deadline? How do we schedule this work to have the least impact on our client? How do we get this piece of glass to fit into a hole that is smaller then the glass? Or why did we build the hole to small in the first place?  I just don’t feel like my current skill set works very well when I am not staying in one place. The answer I came up with is, I need a new skill.

Enter SCUBA diving.  Forward thinking people can make money doing almost anything.  They often take their passions and find a way to make a living doing what they love.  I’m not sure that I’m that forward thinking, but there are lots of people out there making enough money to survive off of diving.  And that is my plan. As soon as we started diving I took to it like, well, “like a fish to water.” It’s been almost a year since we completed our Discover SCUBA class, and I have loved every minute I have spent in the water.  It really has become a passion for me. I am well aware that everything we do in life has its own set of “stuff” to deal with. I don’t think for a second that working in diving is all sunshine and rainbows. The pay doesn’t seem to be that great.  But, that is not what Small Living Big Life is about. It’s about shaking things up and seeing how much money we really NEED to live a full and happy life.

I have set a goal of becoming a PADI Open Water Instructor before it is time for us to leave Central Pennsylvania, and plan to document and share the journey in some later posts.  I will do my best to write the story in real time so there are probably going to be thoughts and ideas that change as we go, but life is all about learning, growing, and changing our perspective.