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We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us

TRP Challenge 9- Taking a leap of faith and travelling alone

Spontaneity hasn’t always been my strong suit. In fact, for the first 21 or so years of my life I preferred careful planning & knowing exactly what was happening down to a T. I didn’t like surprises. I planned out my weeks, days and sometimes even hours. 

So how did I go from that to leaving my well paid graduate job to backpack solo around South East Asia?! 

When I began recovery from the eating disorder which had forced me to become even more regimented in my planning, I started to force myself to not plan everything. I’m not going to lie, it’s an ongoing process. Before I came away, I still planned my weeks meals on Sunday night, regimentally made my breakfast & lunch the night before work. I attended the same gym classes every week, had an identical bed time routine every night. I planned my weekends at the start of the week. I always knew what I was doing the next day. 

It all changed when I began to realise I wasn’t quite happy with my life. I spoke about this feeling in my first post, but this niggling feeling intensified during summer 2017 after a few knocks to my personal life and well-being. I wanted to do something different, and ultimately to prove to myself that I can do anything I put my mind to, and I can do it all on my own. 

I’m under no illusion that travelling allows you to ‘find yourself’ in the most overused stereotype of them all. The real reason I decided to book my one way flight was because my biggest fear in life is to get to 40 & look back at my life thus far and be filled with regret for all the things I had always wanted to do, but never got around to. So I did it. I left my job, I moved my belongings into my grandparents house, I squashed my necessities into a backpack and I headed out into the unknown, and it’s the best decision I have ever made. 

What I’m trying to say is that you should book that flight, bus, train you have kept open in an incognito browser. Text that person you like. Ring your friend whom you haven’t spoken to in forever. Read that book. Watch that film. Go out on that hike you’ve been meaning to. Try a new sport, a new gym class, a new hobby. Do something which scares you; book a sky dive, run a marathon (or a 5k, 10k or anything in between). Take someone out to that restaurant you’ve wanted to try since it opened. Try something exotic on the menu, no matter how much you might dislike it. Eat that chocolate bar, dance all night sober or buzzed off too many tequilas. Or stay in bed and watch that show on Netflix everyone has recommended. Lay in all day on a Sunday or get up to watch sunrise. In the wise words of the Nike marketers, JUST DO IT. I promise you, you won’t regret it. You’ll realise how much you can achieve if you just put a bit of faith in yourself. Life is for living, and if not now, when? 

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