Left Is Your Friend and Linda Is the Emergency Alert System

Sometimes the road IS the adventure.

I made my first right turn after leaving Dublin Airport and promptly found myself driving on the wrong side of the road.

Not metaphorically.

The actual wrong side. The side where you’re going to become a story on the evening news if you don’t figure things out pretty damn quickly.

And that’s when Linda introduced the phrase that would become the soundtrack of our Ireland adventure.

“LEFT IS YOUR FRIEND!”

She wasn’t making a gentle suggestion.

She was making sure we lived long enough to enjoy the rest of our vacation.

Welcome to Ireland.

We Ain’t Skeered of Anything

Now, before you start thinking we were a couple of inexperienced travelers who had gotten in over our heads, you need to understand something about Linda and me.

We’re not exactly known for waiting until everything is safe, comfortable, and guaranteed to work out before making a decision.

We met in a bar singing karaoke, eloped eight weeks later, and THEN met each other’s parents.

We’ve been doing things a little differently ever since.

By the time we arrived in Ireland, we’d spent years building and living a life around travel and adventure. Not because we’d retired. We hadn’t. We’d built a business that allowed us to work while we traveled, helping other people discover what they were passionate about and find work that supported the lives they wanted.

Our passion was travel and adventure.

Our work made it possible.

And we weren’t about to arrive in Ireland, sit around waiting for buses, and hope they happened to go where we wanted to go.

I had an itinerary.

We had places to see.

We were getting a car.

Besides, I’d already driven a rental car around London by myself for a day. How much harder could Ireland be with Linda along to help?

As it turns out, significantly harder.

But that was okay.

We could get where we wanted to go in our own vehicle.

Or die trying.

Literally, as it turned out.

Everything Was Backward, Including My Brain

We picked up our rental car at Dublin Airport.

It had a manual transmission, which wasn’t a problem. I’d been driving cars for decades. Driving was something I was good at.

Except now I was sitting on the opposite side of the car, driving on the opposite side of the road, and shifting gears with the opposite hand.

My driving skills hadn’t disappeared.

But fifty-some years of knowing exactly where everything belonged were suddenly working against me.

And then came that first right turn.

Okay. Lesson learned.

Then came the roundabout.

For those of you unfamiliar with roundabouts, imagine a traffic intersection designed by somebody who thought regular intersections just weren’t exciting enough.

You enter a circle, follow the traffic, and exit where you need to go.

Simple.

Unless you’re an American driving on the left side of the road, sitting on the right side of the car, shifting with your left hand, and trying to interpret directions being delivered by an increasingly enthusiastic passenger.

I got into the roundabout.

Getting out apparently required an advanced certification I hadn’t earned.

Around we went.

And around.

Linda shouted directions. I searched for the correct exit and whatever remained of my dignity.

Eventually we escaped.

Two capable adults, one rental car, and a country that had apparently decided to do everything backward.

And we were just getting started.

Linda Became the Emergency Alert System

Normally, when we travel by car, Linda works on her computer while I drive.

It was part of how we made our full-time travel lifestyle work. We could cover miles while still taking care of the business.

That arrangement lasted about five minutes in Ireland.

She opened her laptop, took one look at what was happening outside the windshield, and decided that whatever she was working on could wait.

She closed the computer.

For the remainder of the drive, Linda had a new job.

Keeping us alive.

Every time I drifted a little too far toward the center of the road, there she was.

Every time I approached a turn and my American driving habits started getting ideas, she reminded me which side belonged to us.

I’m pretty sure if we’d installed a brake pedal on her side of the car, she would have worn it out before we reached the first castle.

But here’s the thing.

We were laughing.

A lot.

Sure, there were some exciting moments. Maybe a few that were a little more exciting than we’d intended.

But we weren’t miserable. We weren’t wishing we’d taken public transportation.

We were experiencing Ireland.

And that included learning how to drive in it.

The Buses Owned the Road

Eventually we got away from the larger roads and started exploring the Irish countryside.

Beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful.

Green hills, old stone walls, castles, churches, and little roads winding through landscapes that seemed to have been there forever.

And those little roads were LITTLE.

Many of them looked like they had been built for a horse and buggy and never received the memo that automobiles had been invented.

Which was manageable.

Until we met a bus.

Now, I used to think bus drivers in Ireland acted like they owned the road.

But that’s not really fair.

The bus drivers KNEW they owned the road.

Their buses were the same size as the road.

There wasn’t any left for the rest of us.

So there I am, coming around a bend on a narrow country road, and here comes a full-sized bus taking up what appeared to be every available inch of pavement.

To my left was a hedge.

Or a stone wall.

To my right was a bus.

And beside me was Linda, whose emergency alert system was functioning perfectly.

“LEFT IS YOUR FRIEND!”

Yes, dear. I’m aware.

The question was how far left I could go before we became permanently attached to the Irish countryside.

Somehow, we made it past.

No collision.

No hedge removal.

No obituary.

And plenty to laugh about afterward.

Here’s something interesting, though.

After a while, I got the hang of it.

My hands learned where the gears were. My brain stopped trying to put the car on the American side of the road. The roundabouts became manageable.

And Linda didn’t need to scream nearly as much.

The roads hadn’t gotten any wider, and the traffic wasn’t going to make special accommodations for the visiting Americans.

But something had changed.

We had gotten better at experiencing it.

We Didn’t Rent a Car Just to Get Somewhere

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about as I remember that trip.

A lot of people would look at our driving adventures and think, “Why would you put yourselves through that? Why not just take a bus?”

And maybe that’s the right choice for them.

But for us, driving around Ireland wasn’t simply transportation between tourist attractions.

Driving in Ireland WAS experiencing Ireland.

The country roads. The little villages. The castles appearing along the way. The stone walls. The unexpected turns. Even the occasional encounter that got our hearts pumping.

Those experiences weren’t inconveniences preventing us from enjoying the trip.

They were part of what made the trip worth taking.

Sure, we had an itinerary. We knew where we wanted to go.

But the itinerary wasn’t the adventure.

Everything that happened while we were getting there was.

And if we’d arranged our trip around eliminating every uncomfortable or unfamiliar experience, we’d have missed a whole lot of what made Ireland unforgettable.

We might have gotten to the same places.

But we wouldn’t have had the same journey.

Apparently, the Roads Weren’t Enough

Just when we’d become reasonably comfortable navigating Ireland’s roads, we decided to take a boat to see the Cliffs of Moher.

Because why limit ourselves to one form of questionable transportation?

We booked a boat excursion.

The weather was less than cooperative.

Thirty-knot winds. Rough seas with waves reportedly reaching seven to ten feet. Barf bags being handed around like complimentary snacks.

The people who had fought for the best seats with the best views were rewarded with a steady supply of saltwater spray.

And we weren’t even sure we’d see the cliffs.

The fog was so thick when we left that we could have spent the entire trip bouncing around in the ocean looking at absolutely nothing.

But when we reached the cliffs, something wonderful happened.

The fog lifted.

Sunlight broke through.

And there they were.

Massive cliffs rising out of the Atlantic, making everything we’d just experienced getting there seem insignificant.

For a moment, we simply took it all in.

What a sight.

Would it have been easier to see the cliffs from land on a nice sunny day?

Probably.

But we would have missed that incredible moment when the fog cleared and the cliffs appeared in front of us.

And we would have missed the boat ride.

Barf bags and all.

Challenges Bring Growth

I’ve been figuring things out for most of my life.

I was on my own in many ways by the time I was eleven years old. My single mother worked three jobs to keep us in an apartment and clothes on my back.

There wasn’t always somebody available to show me how to do things.

I learned to figure them out.

And after enough years of figuring things out, you begin to understand something.

You don’t have to know how to do something before you start.

Sometimes you learn because you started.

And sometimes the very thing that makes an experience difficult is what makes it valuable.

Now, I’m not suggesting we should run around looking for misery.

There’s enough of that available without making reservations.

But I do believe that challenges bring growth.

When we put ourselves in situations that require us to adapt, learn, solve problems, or simply try something we haven’t done before, we give ourselves opportunities to become more capable than we were yesterday.

And that doesn’t have to stop at a certain age.

I was 62 years old when we drove around Ireland.

I already knew how to drive.

I already knew how to solve problems.

I didn’t need to prove that I was brave.

But Ireland gave me an opportunity to take something I knew how to do and learn to do it differently.

And it was fun!

That’s the part I don’t want us to overlook.

We weren’t suffering our way around Ireland in pursuit of some great personal breakthrough.

We were having a blast.

The challenge was part of the fun.

What Are You Going After?

Linda has a saying that I’ve always loved.

“You can either retire FROM something or retire TO something.”

She’s not talking about whether you stop receiving a paycheck.

She’s talking about whether your life has something ahead of it.

Too often, I hear people approaching the next season of life with one goal: stopping.

Stop working.

Stop dealing with responsibilities.

Stop having to do things.

And believe me, I understand wanting a break.

But I wonder what happens when stopping becomes the destination.

What happens after you’ve stopped?

Linda and I have chosen to keep going AFTER something.

We find something that interests us, something we want to experience, accomplish, or discover. We figure out what it will take to make it possible, and we go after it.

When we accomplish that, we find something else.

That doesn’t mean we’re always moving or that every day has to be an adventure.

It means we want to keep growing.

Our original plan was to travel full-time while continuing to work.

That’s it.

We didn’t have a master plan that included every twist and turn that would come later. Life had other ideas. Our adventures eventually included living on a 44-foot motor yacht, exploring the Florida Keys, and spending months traveling through Europe.

None of that was on the original itinerary.

But we’d built a life that allowed us to keep discovering what might come next.

And every new chapter brought something else to learn.

Another challenge.

Another opportunity.

Another adventure.

It’s Not the Destination. It’s the Journey.

Yeah, I know.

It’s an old cliché.

But sometimes clichés stick around because they’re true.

We drove a big loop around Ireland. South, west, north, and eventually east again toward Dublin.

Near the end of the trip, we stayed at a beautiful resort at Killeen Castle, not far from the airport.

We were back on wider roads. Driving had become familiar enough that we weren’t constantly thinking about which side of the road we belonged on.

And we could relax and appreciate the beauty of Ireland without quite so much excitement coming through the windshield.

But looking back, I wouldn’t trade those early driving experiences for an easier trip.

The wrong turn.

The roundabout.

The narrow roads.

Linda’s emergency announcements.

All that laughing.

Those are the memories that still make me smile.

We didn’t just see Ireland.

We experienced it.

And somewhere along the way, we got a little better at something we’d never done quite that way before.

That’s what I hope we never stop doing.

Because the older we get, the easier it can become to build our lives around things we’re already comfortable doing.

We know our routines. We know what works. We know how to avoid unnecessary headaches.

And there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the comforts we’ve earned.

But what if we’re so busy avoiding difficulty that we’re also avoiding opportunities to grow?

What if the interesting part of the next chapter is something we don’t know how to do yet?

What if the very thing we’re tempted to avoid becomes the thing we’ll remember most?

I don’t ever want to reach a point where we’re so comfortable with what we already know that we stop discovering what else we might be capable of.

So here’s my question for you.

What are you going AFTER?

And are you willing to experience the challenges that come with getting there?

Because maybe the challenges aren’t standing between you and the life you want.

Maybe they’re part of the life you want.

And if you’re lucky, you’ll have somebody beside you reminding you that left is your friend.

Preferably at a reasonable volume.

Helmets optional. Detours allowed. Autopilot disengaged.

Matt & Linda
No 2 The Quo

Before We Had the Framework, We Had the Stories

We didn’t start No 2 The Quo with a tidy little life design model and a color-coded spreadsheet.

Shocking, I know.

We started with a few lived decisions. Big ones. Messy ones. The kind where you say, “This is probably fine,” while quietly wondering if you have lost your entire mind.

These three stories explain how we got here before we had the words Declaration of Intendependence™ to describe what we were doing.

These are the origin stories behind No 2 The Quo.

👉 Why We Said No 2 The Quo After the Kids Left Home
👉 It Took Two Years to “Suddenly” Change Our Lives
👉 Yes, We Really Did Pack Our Whole Life Into a Car and Leave

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