Mark Alan Fish

One of the unexpected lessons from reMARKable Odyssey 2.0 arrived not on the road, but after returning from it.

A week after my first Explorer trip to Sun Valley, I found myself looking around Base Camp — my small apartment in downtown Boise — and feeling unsettled.

The place wasn’t dirty. It wasn’t terrible. It was simply unfinished. Boxes still needed homes. Systems still needed to be created. Things still needed to be organized.

As I sat with that feeling, I realized something deeper was going on.

I wasn’t really frustrated with the apartment.

I was afraid of settling.

When I launched reMARKable Odyssey in November 2025, I intentionally left behind certainty. I gave up my apartment, put most of my belongings in storage, and spent months exploring, learning, and asking bigger questions about how I wanted to live.

One of the biggest insights from that journey was realizing that constantly moving every 30 days wasn’t the ideal environment for building a coaching business.

So I made a change — I leased a small apartment in Boise that I now call Base Camp.

The idea was simple: spend a few weeks building, coaching, writing, and creating, then head out for a week or two of exploration before returning to do it again. It became the foundation for what I now call Anchored Freedom.

The plan made sense.

And yet there I was, a week after returning from Sun Valley, asking myself:

“What if I get stuck here?”

That question surprised me.

After all, it’s only a one-year lease. I chose it intentionally. I knew from the beginning it wasn’t my dream home.

In fact, one of the greatest gifts of the Odyssey has been discovering that my long-term vision probably looks less like downtown city living and more like nature, open space, a smaller town — a place of my own or one that I share with someone I love.

I’m Not Settling. I’m Staging.

So why was I feeling tension?

Because the Explorer in me had raced far into the future.

“What if this becomes permanent?”
“What if I accidentally settle?”
“What if this chapter becomes the rest of the story?”

Then, almost as if he’d been quietly listening the whole time, the Sage finally spoke.

“You’re not stuck.”
“You’re treating a temporary chapter as though it were a permanent destination.”
“This chapter isn’t asking you to stay forever. It’s asking you to live it well.”

That was the shift in thinking I needed.

This Base Camp was never intended to be my forever home; it was designed to solve a problem.

A place to build.
A place to coach.
A place to write.
A place to return after adventures.
A place to create stability while still allowing room for exploration.

And it was doing exactly what it was designed to do.

That’s when I realized…

“I’m not settling. I’m staging.”

The Difference Between Settling and Staging

Settling says:

“This isn’t what I want, but I’ll accept it because I don’t believe something better is possible.”

Staging says:

“This serves an important purpose for the chapter I’m currently living.”

From the outside, those two things can look remarkably similar.

The same apartment.
The same job.
The same city.
The same relationship.

The difference isn’t the situation — it’s the story we attach to it.

You can be deeply committed to your current chapter without believing it has to be your final chapter.

I think many of us confuse commitment with permanence.

We assume that if we fully commit to something, we’re somehow locked into it forever.

But healthy commitment isn’t saying, “I will do this forever.”

It’s saying, “I will fully show up for this chapter while it is mine to live.”

The Sage might put it even more simply…

“Live this chapter well.”

Not because it will last forever.

But because one day it will become part of the life you look back on.

A life well lived is not created by perfectly planning every future chapter. A life well lived is created by fully inhabiting the chapter you’re in.

Live This Chapter Well

Ultimately,

Life is nothing more than a collection of chapters.

If we rush through them…
If we resist them…
If we spend all our time wishing we were already living the next one…

We miss the very life we’re trying to build.

As I write this, I realize that this article will be published the day before I leave for my next Explorer trip — Anchorage, Alaska — which makes me smile.

Because, for all the stories my mind was creating about getting stuck, life has already booked the next adventure.

The Explorer is still here; he’s simply learning something new.

Freedom isn’t always the absence of an anchor.
Sometimes freedom is having one.

And perhaps that’s true for more of life than we realize.

Not every place is meant to be your destination.
Not every decision is meant to be permanent.
Not every chapter is meant to last forever.

Some chapters exist to prepare you for the next one.

So if you’re wrestling with a decision and wondering whether you’re settling, maybe ask yourself a different question:

Is this serving the chapter I’m currently living in?

Because sometimes you aren’t settling.

You’re staging.

And staging is often how we create space for what’s next.