Reflections from the end of my sixth week in Utah:
As I sit here watching Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting, I can’t help but think, what does it mean to make a life changing decision? Now, if you’ve never seen the show, you can find it on the service freevee and I highly recommend you watch a few episodes. They make for a nice pick-me-up or a relaxing day ender. Those familiar with the show may be familiar with his famous phrase, “a happy little accident”, where he makes a ‘mistake’ but uses that ‘slip up’ to enhance his end result. Bob Ross’s philosophy lines up with the ancient philosophy I hold dear of “there are no accidents”. In the past, I have used this philosophy to handle ‘bad news’ by way of the phrase, “You never know”. People may say, “that’s so awful!” or “that’s so great!” but honestly, “you never know” until you see what comes next. For my current situation, I have expanded this line of thinking to ponder the question I proposed above.
What does it mean to make a life changing decision?
I’ve been chewing on this for 3 weeks now because I’ve had to make a decision that was by all definitions a life changing one! Since August of 2022, I’ve had a plan in the works which started with quitting both of my jobs and has led me to the desert campsite in Utah I now call home. The next step of my plan has me back in Kansas City by March 1st for my next job at a local native plant nursery called City Roots. I have a roommate situation lined up so I can move out of my childhood home. I bought a used compact car for city life. I’ve even got friends close by and a garden for my growing needs! While moving to the city started as a pipe dream 7 months ago, the possibility became real at the dawn of 2023, right before I left for some desert solitaire.
Upon arriving in Utah, I knew my bosses were going to ask me to stick around for a while longer. Not because I’m good at construction, but because they have few workers and need every hand willing to work. Plus I cook… They enjoy my cooking. Expecting this request to stay, I was ready to say no and hold my own. What I wasn’t ready for was the financial bonuses offered if I stayed till April 1st and again if I stayed till May 1st. Without getting into the numbers, let’s just say I would double my take home pay and I would be able to max out my retirement fund for 2022 and for half of 2023. Maxing out my fund is an important goal of mine and it was definitely enough money for me to reconsider my dream life in Kansas City. While I was willing to reconsider, I couldn’t help but think, was I really about to prioritize a difficult life in the desert where I would likely destroy my body, forgo my ethics, and separate myself from my family over the life I’ve dreamed up for myself in KC? And for what, some extra chedda?
My uncle was the one who officially asked me and I requested 2 weeks to chew on the offer. But, in great Josh fashion, I procrastinated thinking about this decision until 2 days before my decision deadline. Instead, I spent my free thinking time (which was minimal due to my living quarters) pondering the very nature of life changing decisions. After all, I had made more than my fair share over the past 7 months. How does one define a life changing decision? Not to mention, accepting the existence of a life changing decision implies the existence of a non-life changing decision, and what, may I ask, is a decision that has no effect on your life? Does such a decision exist? Even a seemingly minuscule decision, like what one may have for breakfast, is a complex social and ethical decision which can change the course of a day, a person’s short and long-term health and aid their mood regulation. Let’s play with this idea for a moment.
If I decide to stay up until midnight watching Bob Ross and typing for this blog, doesn’t that make my 7am tomorrow morning just a little harder? And doesn’t that make it just a bit more difficult to execute my construction job with efficiency and patience? Not only will my life tomorrow be harder, but don’t I also reinforce the behavior of staying up late by disrupting my circadian rhythm, causing my life to be harder over the next couple days? Doesn’t tiredness on a construction site also increase the risk of danger that could result in long-term injury?!?! (Sorry mom, I promise I’ll be extra safe!)
Now some of you may be thinking, “well Josh, a life-changing decision is a BIG one! Something that shakes up your entire life!”. Well sure! But, tomorrow morning Josh would argue he feels very shaken up by his new life with an unfulfilling sleep schedule! But I hear your point, maybe there’s a threshold between an everyday decision and a life-changing one? Maybe, the difference rests somewhere between changing your living environment and crossing state lines. Which makes sense to an extent, but don’t we have the power to change our living environment each day, even if we chose not to? By this logic, isn’t our inaction to change also a life-changing decision? Tomorrow after work, I could clean the camper, sweep the floor, dust the shelves, and get my life in order. Or I could choose to start a fire, crack a case of beers, smoke a pack of cigarettes and call it a night. Both of these decisions will change my life, the question one must then ask themselves is, am I satisfied with this life I’ve created? Or, does this life leave a deep sense of longing to be somewhere else, doing something different? To ask yourself these questions can be mentally taxing, but to be of any use to the self, they require a certain skill: Honesty.
Honesty is a virtue I hold dear to my heart, but I struggle greatly when it comes to being honest with myself which can make a question like this indescribably difficult. I’ve created living situations in which I knew I didn’t want to be in, but that I rationalized myself into accepting through various methods of internal gymnastics. My last relationship was this way. I saw red flags that things were not optimal for me and my mental health, but I rationalized my decision to stay together for 5 months longer than I should have. My continued inaction to change my life, ultimately changed everything when the relationship exploded into a life-changing event that I have only recently gotten over…a mere 6 months later… It wasn’t pretty.
Due to this, and other past decision making blunders, I am investing in personal honesty, now more than ever, as my main method of decision making. 2 days before choosing between my dream life and a logical, rationalized life, I sat down to journal and conducted the following self-interrogation (the text below is an unedited segment of a larger journal entry):
“I am on a mission to make the lives of everyone I interact with better, one act of loving kindness at a time. While that doesn’t help push me in any one career or life direction, it may prove as effective guidance. Let’s do some yes or no questions to see if we can narrow this down a little.
- Do you feel your existence has the power to benefit everyone in your life? Yes.
- Can you handle every moment with love, kindness and attentiveness? Yes.
- Do you have to be in Kansas City to grow spiritually? No.
- Will you grow even more in Utah than in KC? No.
- Will you be ruining your life if you return home? No.
- Do you believe in God (whatever form they take)? Yes.
- Do you believe your dreams will come true if you act on them every day? Yes.
- Do you have the ability to bring about more balance every day? Yes.
- Will it be easier to bring balance into the world if your internal state is balanced? Yes.
- Do you believe you will be happier overall in Kansas City? Yes.
“Josh Leone 1/27/23
I’m not claiming this method will work for anybody else, but through direct questioning, I forced myself to be honest in a way I normally cannot be with myself. Other people, sure, but it’s hard to know what’s real or fiction up in this skull of mine. Through this exercise, I had to admit to myself that being here in Utah, while fun, exciting, thought-provoking, beneficial & life-changing, was not where I wanted to be. In this moment, my decision became clear as day. I didn’t know why I wanted to leave, or what was calling me back home (I still didn’t know for another 2 weeks), but I felt it in my heart of hearts (it was actually closer to my stomach) that my next step was back in Kansas City.
My decision to sit down, journal the way I did, and to be honest with myself has changed my life. Notice, it was not my decision to leave that I am claiming to have been life-changing, but the decision to sit my buns down and be honest with myself. It wasn’t just because I made a decision that will change my living environment, or because I’m crossing state lines, but because I’ve formed a new habit. Without knowing it at the time, I created a new way of handling my inner dialogue that rids me of my decade old habit of paralyzing indecision (AKA Analysis Paralysis). The decision to sit down, the decision to journal, the decision to interrogate myself, the decision to leave, and the decision to investigate my reasoning, were all equally impactful in the story of my life.
So, What Does it Mean to Make a Life Changing decision?
Well, I don’t see why every decision can’t be a life changing one. But, what I’ve learned from this experience is no one decision deserves the extreme weight an individual may put on it, yet all decisions demand a careful amount of respect and consideration. My decision to write about this question has changed my relationship to decision making and I hope to worry less about making the ‘perfect decision’ going forward. Afterall, I can only do the best with what I’ve got and make the best decision in each moment with my limited amount of knowledge. It seems this is all anyone can do in this wonderfully confusing game of life. Who knows, maybe my decision to move back to KC will be the happy little accident I’ve been longing for.
Thank you all for your time and attention and for joining me on this journey of mine. I wish everybody a safe and love filled weekend. Until next time! 🙂
Josh 2/9/23
The Next Step 
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