The Turnaround Point
I’m riding my horse Alegria along the water’s edge at sunset. It was four years ago. The waves? They are not so much breaking as unfolding, their smooth glassiness somehow remaining intact as they wash ashore.
Behind me, a group of people are living their bucket list dreams, riding horses along the beach at sunset.
But me? I am miserable.
Sure, I’m glad they are living their dreams - but this group? They arrived close to an hour late, without apologies. I had other plans for my evening. I was hungry. I still had chores to do at the ranch once we got back. Their unapologetic tardiness threw everything off.
As Alegria and I strolled down the beach leading the group - their pace was another point of angst - slow not in a leisurely or relaxed way, but more of a dawdle - my mind was spinning.
Why were they so late?
Why didn’t they let us know?
Why didn’t they at least apologize?
Why did we still let them ride?
How will I get all the chores done?
I’m hungry!
The thing is, this wasn’t always my life.
Over two decades before this moment I sat in a cubicle on the 5th floor of a corporate office building, staring out the window as the sun lowered in the sky, watching rush hour on the 405 freeway crawl.
It was the spring of 2000. I was 29. I reported to the COO of the up and coming tech company I had joined, right out of college, in the early 90’s. Having worked my way up the ranks I now led a team of people. I made six figures.
I was miserable.
Sure, the money was good - being able to take friends out to eat, buying a new camera without worrying about the cost, pretty much doing what I wanted, when I wanted, without considering the financial implications.
I had a lot of money. But I had no time.
At the end of the day, it all felt empty. That emptiness permeated everything.
Twenty some years later, as I rode down the beach on Alegria that summer evening, grousing about the dawdling pace, the disrespectful tardiness of the people, and all the things that still needed to be done, I felt a familiar tug.
A niggle, if you will.
Something that wanted to be heard, but was somehow just out of reach.
Something familiar.
I shoved that familiar something down and kept trudging along through the waves toward the rocky point - our turnaround spot and group photo op.
Back in the spring of 2000, just weeks after that day staring at the rush hour gridlock from my cubicle, I made a decision. I decided to burn it all down. Not literally, of course. But figuratively, for sure.
I quit my job. Gave notice on my apartment. Packed my belongings - what would fit - into the back of my black 1998 Isuzu Rodeo - and I drove across country to begin a master’s program at Princeton Theological Seminary. I left it all behind. The job. The life. The promise of the stock options.
Little did I know that by that fall, when the tech bubble burst, the job would have been gone anyway, the stock options became worthless, and that life would have changed dramatically.
But on the August day that I drove east on the 10 out of Southern California I didn’t know any of that.
My coworkers had said I was brave. I didn’t feel brave. I just felt like I was doing what I had to do. I was following my calling. I was setting off into the unknown, sure, but with all the confidence of success and youth and the surety of a clear calling.
It was change. Big change. Exciting change. I had burned it all down and I was starting fresh.
I couldn’t wait.
Back on the beach the sun was dipping closer to the horizon. With the dawdling group in tow, we finally reached the rocky point. “This is our photo op,” I said, organizing them into a line. In truth? It was a spectacular photo - these friends, sitting on their horses, smiling, with just the right light - that golden hour glow. I clicked the shutter on my camera to capture the moment.
But in that moment something else clicked as well.
It felt like a Tetris block - falling, rotating, shifting, and at the exact moment of its settling, locking perfectly into place. It was the niggle.
Here I was, riding Alegria, who I love - and whose very name means joy - along the beach at sunset, guiding a group of people living their dreams - but I was miserable.
Miserable, just like I had been sitting in the cubicle overlooking the traffic on the 405.
How could that be?
I had changed everything about my life since that day on the 5th floor. Nothing remained. I had burned down my old life and created a new one. A fresh start. Or so I thought.
But here I was, somehow, inexplicably, miserable. Again.
As I looked out toward the setting sun I realized - I had changed my scenery completely - but I had not actually changed my self.
That was four years ago.
It was the beginning of The Return.
If you have ever done the hard work of shifting your entire geography or changing your outer world, only to realize the internal irritation and “hurry” followed you, you are not alone.
Tomorrow evening, Monday, June 8th at 6pm pacific, I’m sitting down live online with my friend Christin Rice to talk about her new book, The Clinic, and what it actually means to be “brave about the things that matter to you.” We’ll be diving deep into what happens when we stop trying to burn down our scenery, and start doing the deeper work of returning to ourselves.
I’d love to see you there. You can register (free) here.
If you’ve found this intriguing and you’d like to go a little further, here are a few ways we can walk together:
✨ Take the Reins: A monthly practice in agency. Join our intimate, hour-long community gatherings to explore how the wisdom of horsemanship can help us navigate modern human challenges. Second Sunday of the month, 10am Pacific.
🌿 The Return: A 10-Week Journey Home: A self-guided audio journey back to the energy, ease, and vitality you know are possible, but somehow went missing. Explore the fully unlocked 10-week audio archive inside a private Marco Polo Sharecast entirely at your own pace.
🧘 The ABCs of a Deep Seat: A free guide to finding your centered, grounded connection—that frequency that keeps you from being thrown when the trail of life gets rough.
