Tough travels & Escape hatches

This is not a vacation

There are times in life where we’re in places that we’re incredibly fortunate to be, only to find that we’re feeling irritable and frustrated where we should be grateful.

I was recently hiking in the Zomba Plateau of Malawi, living the dream, only to find I was in a totally sh*t mood.

How could I feel irritable and grumpy when I was exploring Africa, something I’d dreamed about for months?

I had a few ideas: people staring at me 24/7 hardly saying anything, never really knowing what’s going on, constantly being told prices that are inflated and having to negotiate almost everything, “travel speak” English where what’s said isn’t what is meant… and maybe a few more.

Was this all a big mistake? Was I not cut out for this? Should I go back to America? Maybe I’m not this adventurous explorer I thought I was?

This was the first time of the trip where I felt the stark difference between travel and vacation. Specifically “out there” travel.

Vacations are often short, relaxing, and comfortable.

Travel can be those things at certain times, but it is also challenging, intimidating, hectic, formative, awe inspiring, and enlightening.

Another one of my loves in life helped me understand this dichotomy - the gym. I love going to the gym, I get pumped up to go even though I go nearly every day… but then often I’ll get there and not even want to workout, or want to finish early, or be beaten down in the middle of it.

I still love the gym.

Travel is similar. I love it, but not every moment of it provides immediate gratification. And that’s a good thing.

No one grows in comfort and familiarity.

The challenge is a major part of the appeal.

I’ll remember that next time I’m in a mood.

You can’t go back

A lot of quality advice about the pursuit of your dreams - a life you actually want to live outside the limitations most people put on themselves - includes a qualification:

“If it doesn’t work out, you can always go back to where you were before.”

Some people are terrified that if they “go for it” and “it” doesn’t work out in the way they intend, they’ll be down and out living in a park with no future prospects.

The reality is that whatever situation you left will take you back in one way or another…

But that safeguard advice fails to finish with the truth:

In reality, you can never go back. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle. You may struggle, stumble, fail, have to figure out ways to pay the bills on top of getting your dreams to a point where they do… but you cannot unlearn what got you here in the first place.

To do otherwise would be to live a lie, and not just any lie. The lie of your life.

Once in a while I wonder worry about how things are going in my own pursuits. Anyone on the come up has plenty of room to worry if they let themselves.

But at the end of the day I always get here:  one step at a time, these are the hard parts most people quit at, I truly believe in myself, and one way or another things will work out.

It might be hard. It might be harder than hard.

Things will work out.