Couple days ago marked my wife and my one year engagement anniversary (married now a couple months), and we celebrated with nothing extravagant as it was a Thursday night, and were both tired, but still had a great dinner and drinks together at one of our favorite sushi bars. This passed year has accommodated many changes in our life, great changes fortunately.

Both, my wife and I, have completely changed our careers in this last quarter of the year, but already have adopted a much happier life. Being able to be home with my wife, pets, and have the opportunities to see family or go to events has been a revolutionary change in life. Although I haven’t been focusing on my personal goals with LivingLife as I initially planned for this year when I began this blog, the goal to live life more has in fact come along far faster than I anticipated.

LivingLife initially was going to show my transformation from working nights and living a heavily imbalanced life, documenting my struggles to find balance and my pursuit to overcome these challenges gradually as I developed LivingLife, as well as moved my career off working night shift.

Thankfully though, with using my few beginnings of LivingLife, I had an intuition that in order for me to truly begin LivingLife, I must begin focusing on living a real life for a change. And with that, I took a huge leap of faith and quit my job (after lining up an entirely new career path within a 24hr period) to flip my life upside-down. That was one of the most nerve-racking decisions I’ve made going from a safe and secure career that provided a slightly-above average living income but horrible life opportunities, to a slightly-below average income but with great opportunities to live a life with my future wife (at the time in August).

I wouldn’t have made such a huge leap of faith had I not been preparing financially though for this (saved approx. 4-6 months of expenses) over the coarse of about a year. Although I originally began saving for the day I finally “just had enough” and quite out of frustration of a career that I couldn’t escape working nights (“F.I.I.Q. — Fund” I use to call it a.k.a. “F* It I Quit — Fund”). However, things came about at a pleasant means to transition, and I made every effort to end my career quietly, respectfully, and offered any assistance in the transition if needed for a year (luckily I wasn’t needed to work nights for another year though, as I had been preparing my crew for many years for my departure as I knew I didn’t want to stay on nights, but cared too much for the success to leave it stranded).

After quitting my night job, and taking on my day job, the stress was high in the beginning transitioning from sufficient funds, to about half to 2/3rds of what I was bringing home, but with my wife’s new career and higher pay, we’ve quickly come from possibly needing to dip into savings, to managing our wedding, and holidays, and still finance our life, all while using half of savings to pay off all debts (besides our house mortgage, which we always pay extra and are a bit over a year ahead of principle/interest payments).

“Where is he going with all this? And what does he mean by Puddle Stomper?” you may be asking yourself about now. Many of you have probably heard the phrase, “Dancing in the rain”, used mostly to describe staying positive, not letting things get you down, seeing the better of things. Staying positive is important, and upbeat positive people are great to spend time with, however, too much positive focus with little to no action will not create accomplishment. Living your life with your “mind in the clouds” won’t bring success if you’re not actively making your dreams factual and progressive accomplishments.

Dating someone who’s very upbeat and always positive is important, but can be too much, and even dangerous, when that person also doesn’t see reality as it really is at times. Someone who dances in the rain to enjoy life’s moments but unwilling to buckle down and live real life and take care of responsibility won’t grow as a person as quickly as someone who Puddle Stomps. Someone who sees the rain, enjoys the rain, dances in the rain, and fears not to jump in with both feet to take life head-on.

All these changes in my life and my wife’s has been a lot to overcome so quickly, but because she is my Puddle Stomper always willing to jump in feet first with anything I want to do, as well as I’m hers, we support each other’s goals and life, and instead of just being positive for each other, we help one-another tackle life head on. She’s been one of my best friends (nearing fifteen years), and that has been one of the key factors in our relationship.

There’s a high number of relationships out there that are one-sided, either financially, emotionally, or even little care of that other person beyond beauty, money, or because of “burdens” as some think. There’s little balance in a relationship if there’s only a few factors you like about your other half. You can’t change the people you are with, and when you are forcing changes onto each other, this will often grow resentment, remorse, or repulsion of the relationship. Relationships need to be two-way as well as limited changes that aren’t mutually beneficial. Yes, relationships demand sacrifices from a single-living life-style, but they’re often with great benefits and meaningful rewards.

Relationships need to develop more Puddle Stomper mentality in order to grow fuller, more meaningful lives. I’ve been fortunate enough to marry my best friend, who brings my balance in my life, knows who I am and loves that about me, and willing to be my Puddle Stomper (and she really does love to splash in puddles, and the rain, even wanted our wedding in the rain). She is more, “head in the clouds” and I’m more, “nose to the grindstone”, and together we compliment each other to allow ourselves to keep dreaming, and keep striving towards our goals.

Relationship with your significant other needs to be built around a solid friendship with each other. Physical, emotional, or financial attraction alone will never be enough to live a healthy and happy life with that person. There’s little to no balance to a one or two legged table, so don’t try making a relationship out of something that’s only based on one or two aspects of someone that can be altered over time. Find, develop, respect balance in your relationship.

Until next time, keep LivingLife, and take care of yourself and those you love!

Have comments/questions? Please feel free to email me at my2cents@livinglife-blog.com

“Remember, I’m NOT a qualified doctor, trainer, physiologist, philosopher, or have any other certified qualification. I’m only someone who’s passionate to learn & develop personal skills, habits, goals & finding a balance life-style, while sharing my journey through experiences.

– Developer of LivingLife-Blog”