Roosters crow before dawn here. Not as an annoyance … as a reminder.

Instead of sleeping in one of the tourist-filled hotels in the Renaissance city of Florence, I chose to spend my five weeks here living on a quaint old olive farm, 20 minutes outside of Florence, high in the hills overlooking this magical city. 

Crazy Drivers

My drive involves 50 hairpin turns, on roads barely wide enough for one car, threading between ancient stone walls. Meeting another car head-on means someone backs up. As I wind through the Tuscan hills, I pass ancient villas with giant manicured trees meant for royalty, gates buried under cascading wisteria, and farms with rows of purple cherry blossoms. Springtime here is magical.

Distinct Purpose

But here’s what I keep thinking about: I chose this.

I could have done this differently. Found something more convenient, more economical, more practical. There are a few strong art academies in America. But I could not resist the lure of living here for five weeks, fully immersed, in the place where Michelangelo and Da Vinci lived and worked, surrounded by the things I love … great art and great artists.

Most people never make that choice, and settle for what is.

Nobody Had a Reason

Twelve students are completing the program alongside me, mostly a mixture of professionals checking off a bucket list dream and most between their early 30s and late 70s. Almost no one came with an economic argument, an end game, or a career plan. Just a bucket list box to check.

Except one.

A young oil engineer from Dubai. Tired of spending her life doing something she does not love, she is trading it in for something she does … and hoping a living will follow. She may be the wisest person in the room.

The question she’s wrestling with, the one that brought her all the way here, doing three five-week stints in a row: What if the thing I love is actually the thing I’m supposed to do?

Consistency Produces Magic

Here’s what has genuinely surprised me.

Every instructor this week has been completely consistent, teaching the same methodology, none of them trying to insert their own system or shortcuts. What’s mind-blowing is what that consistency produces. 

Students with zero drawing experience. Students like me, who need significant improvement and are trying to unlearn bad habits. Yet on the very first day, after just a few intense hours, the exercises produced significant, visible growth in every person here, including complete novices. 

Each day has built on those lessons. We are fully immersed from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, with optional evening drawing sessions added on top. I have attended every session and have watched my own progress improve significantly in three days by forcing myself to stay focused, immersed, and practicing,

Three days.

I cannot imagine how it will feel after five weeks. Which, though I love my work and my career, I already know will end too soon.

Your Olive Farm

Which brings me to you.

What is the thing you have been putting off, the skill you have been meaning to deepen, the place you have been meaning to go, the version of yourself you have been meaning to become? 

What is the equivalent of your olive farm in the hills — your desire to check off a lifelong dream?

The roosters don’t crow forever. At some point, you stop waking up.

While some might say, “I had my time, I had my career,” one man here, a world-famous photojournalist with multiple Pulitzer Prizes, is here because life “shouldn’t stop with retirement. That’s when life begins.” 

The surprising truth I’m learning here: The reason most people never improve at the thing they love is not lack of talent. It’s not even lack of time. It’s the absence of full immersion in an environment built specifically for that growth, surrounded by others doing the same thing, under the guidance of people who have walked the road ahead of you.

You don’t need five weeks in Tuscany. But you might need something.

What would your something be?

Eric Rhoads

Two stories compete for my attention this Easter morning as the Texas heat starts pretending it’s summer and it’s 95 already. 

One involves pastel eggs hidden in dewy grass, chocolate rabbits, and very docile bunnies.

The other involves a brutal public execution, a borrowed tomb, and the most shocking reversal in human history.

Both are true. Both matter. But only one changes everything.

Red Blazer Days

Easter morning in our house went off like a starter pistol.

My brothers and I would tear through the rooms hunting eggs and baskets, then commence the serious business of consuming as much chocolate as humanly possible before anyone noticed. Then came the transformation: Sunday best.

The 6-year-old version of me had firm opinions about fashion. My favorite red blazer was non-negotiable. But no blazer was complete without my 007 gun and holster strapped underneath, two Hot Wheels cars wedged into my pockets, and the general confidence of a man who had already solved breakfast.

Mom, meanwhile, was an act of art. She made her own hat for every Easter, always elegant, always a surprise. She covered her shoes in matching fabric, pinned on the corsage Dad had brought her, and led us out to the big blue Oldsmobile like a parade marshal who also happened to be the most beautiful woman in town.

The sermon, I will confess, was not always riveting for a 6-year-old. I had a system: Hot Wheels tucked inside a hymnal. Or Mom would quietly hand me a pen and paper so I could draw airplanes. The Lord, I suspect, was amused.

After church came the real prize: cousins, grandparents, Easter dinner, the beautiful noise of a large family filling every room.

What We Miss

I think about those gatherings more as I get older, not less.

Earlier this year my friend Joe in Boston described holiday chaos with 25 people at every dinner, and I felt something I can only describe as a mild, loving envy. Living far from family is a choice, and like all choices, it carries a price. The big gatherings happen less now. The cousins scatter. The grandparents are gone. The Oldsmobile is a memory.

But the feeling of it, that specific warmth of belonging to something larger than yourself, never quite leaves. It just changes shape.

A Personal Resurrection

Last fall I visited friends in Florence, Italy, and something happened that I can only describe as a calling.

I toured the Florence Academy of Art, one of the finest classical art schools in the world. Standing in those studios, where students draw from live models in the same quality of light, in the same neighborhoods where Da Vinci and Michelangelo once worked, something in me shifted. The romance of it. The weight of it. The terrifying excitement of it.

I signed up. Five weeks. Starting Tuesday.

There is no grand plan behind this. I am not quitting my job. I am not expecting to emerge a master. A solid three- or four-year program would really move the needle; five weeks is a beginning, not a conclusion. But I will work 10-hour days in class, come home to homework, and push limits I have grown too comfortable ignoring. That is enough of a reason.

Later today I board a flight for London, then I fly to Florence, pick up a rental car, and drive to a tiny apartment on the outskirts of town, arriving on Easter Monday.

I will be alone. Really alone. Perhaps for the first time since before I was married.

I will admit: The silence intimidates me more than the drawing does. I am not someone who has spent much time with no agenda, no family, no one needing anything. 

I hope to fill the off hours with new friendships, long walks through Tuscan hills, and the particular joy of being beautifully lost.

But I am stepping into this without a map. Which, I suppose, is exactly the point.

Serving No Purpose

Dreams do not require justification.

This trip is impractical. Finding five weeks in a schedule like mine requires real rescheduling, real faith, and a sustained effort to ignore the voice cataloguing all the reasons it was a bad idea.

But here is what I have come to believe: Dreams that require no sacrifice are not really dreams. They are preferences. Real dreams cost something, frighten you a little, and make the people around you raise an eyebrow.

Which brings me to you.

Light the Fuse

What just popped into your head?

Not the responsible answer. The first one, the one you immediately started explaining away.

Was it a place you have always meant to go? A skill you quietly abandoned somewhere in your 20s? A version of yourself you set aside when life got loud and practical?

That dream did not disappear. It just went quiet. It has been waiting.

You do not need a reason. You do not need perfect timing, because the timing will never be perfect. You do not need permission.

What you need is to light the fuse, throw the bomb, hold your ears, and be ready for an explosion that enriches your life beyond what you can currently imagine.

The question is not whether you can afford to pursue it. The question is whether you can afford not to.

What is one bold, impractical, slightly irrational step you could take today, not someday, today, to make it real?

Dreams are meant to be lived. Not remembered. Not mourned. Lived.

Happy Easter.

Eric Rhoads