"Did you know, you can
quit your job, you can leave university? You aren’t legally required to
have a degree, it’s a social pressure and expectation, not the law, and
no one is holding a gun to your head. You can sell your house, you can
give up your apartment, you can even sell your vehicle, and your things
that are mostly unnecessary. You can see the world on a minimum wage
salary, despite the persisting myth, you do not need a high paying job.
You can leave your friends (if they’re true friends they’ll forgive you,
and you’ll still be friends) and make new ones on the road. You can
leave your family. You can depart from your hometown, your country, your
culture, and everything you know. You can sacrifice. You can give up
your $5.00 a cup morning coffee, you can give up air conditioning,
frequent consumption of new products. You can give up eating out at
restaurants and prepare affordable meals at home, and eat the leftovers
too, instead of throwing them away. You can give up cable TV, Internet
even. This list is endless. You can sacrifice climbing up in the
hierarchy of careers. You can buck tradition and others’ expectations of
you. You can triumph over your fears, by conquering your mind. You can
take risks. And most of all, you can travel. You just don’t want it
enough. You want a degree or a well-paying job or to stay in your
comfort zone more. This is fine, if it’s what your heart desires most,
but please don’t envy me and tell me you can’t travel. You’re not in a
famine, in a desert, in a third world country, with five malnourished
children to feed. You probably live in a first world country. You have a
roof over your head, and food on your plate. You probably own luxuries
like a cellphone and a computer. You can afford the $3.00 a night guest
houses of India, the $0.10 fresh baked breakfasts of Morocco, because if
you can afford to live in a first world country, you can certainly
afford to travel in third world countries, you can probably even afford
to travel in a first world country. So please say to me, “I want to
travel, but other things are more important to me and I’m putting them
first”, not, “I’m dying to travel, but I can’t”, because I have yet to
have someone say they can’t, who truly can’t. You can, however, only
live once, and for me, the enrichment of the soul that comes from seeing
the world is worth more than a degree that could bring me in a bigger
paycheck, or material wealth, or pleasing society. Of course, you must
choose for yourself, follow your heart’s truest desires, but know that
you can travel, you’re only making excuses for why you can’t. And if it
makes any difference, I have never met anyone who has quit their job,
left school, given up their life at home, to see the world, and
regretted it. None. Only people who have grown old and regretted never
traveling, who have regretted focusing too much on money and superficial
success, who have realized too late that there is so much more to
living than this."
