Everyone Says I’m Running Away

After I first began touring, my dad used to ask what I’m working away from with my travels. One other time, a commenter instructed me to cease working away from my issues and to start out residing life. “Develop up,” he stated.

And, years in the past, there was even a weblog referred to as “Mother says I’m working away.”

I’m unsure why, however there’s this notion on the market that anybody who travels long term and isn’t all for settling down or getting a traditional job should be working away from one thing.

We vacationers are working away from accountability, being a grown-up, heartache, issues, and many others, and many others. We’re all simply Peter Pans refusing to be “adults.”

Whereas American society thinks touring is one thing everybody ought to do at one level, it’s solely hole years after faculty or short vacations that appear to be acceptable. Get it out of your system and are available again into The Matrix.

These of us who lead nomadic life, or who linger only a bit too lengthy someplace earlier than reaching that last homestretch, are all too typically accused of working away.

Sure, go journey — however not for too lengthy, the world says. Accountable folks don’t simply journey endlessly.

We nomads should have terrible, depressing lives, or are bizarre, or have had one thing traumatic occur to us that we are attempting to flee. Folks assume that we’re merely working away from our issues, working away from “the actual world.”

And to all these individuals who suppose I’m working away, I say: you might be proper.

I am working away.

I’m working away from your concept of the “actual” world.

I’m avoiding your life.

I’m working in direction of the whole lot — towards the world, unique locations, new folks, totally different cultures, and my own idea of freedom. I’m constructing a life that makes me completely satisfied.

Whereas there could also be exceptions (as there are with the whole lot), most individuals who grow to be nomads accomplish that as a result of they need to expertise the world, not escape their issues. They’re working away from workplace life, commutes, and weekend errands, and the company 9 to five. They’re working away from the strict path society has laid out as “regular.” The one which makes us senseless ants marching back and forth.

We (I) need to expertise each tradition, see each mountain, eat totally different meals, attend crazy festivals, meet new people, and luxuriate in totally different holidays around the globe. We need to assemble a life that makes us completely satisfied on our personal phrases.

Life is brief and we solely get to dwell it as soon as. I need to look again and say I did thrilling issues and lived life by myself phrases, not say I spent my life reading blogs like this throughout my lunch break whereas wishing I used to be doing the identical factor.

Nobody dies saying, “If solely I had spent extra time within the workplace!”

As an American, my perspective could be totally different. In my country, the accepted path is lengthy and slender: you go to school, get a job, get married, purchase a home, have 2.5 kids, elevate them, after which retire. Solely then, after you’ve put in your time, are you able to benefit from the fruits of your labor. Society containers you in and restricts your actions to their expectations.

And any deviation is taken into account irregular and bizarre.

Folks could need to journey, inform you they envy what you do, and say they want they may do the identical factor. However they never do. Few people muster the courage to take the leap, regardless of how a lot their coronary heart pulls them. They’re merely fascinated by a way of life so outdoors the norm.

Whereas social media, the rise of digital nomading, and web sites like this have made quitting your job to journey the world or teach English in Thailand just a little extra acceptable, the overall perspective remains to be “observe the trail if you wish to be regular.”

Nicely, I don’t need to be regular.

I really feel like the rationale why folks inform us we’re working away is that they will’t fathom the truth that we broke the mould and live outdoors the norm. To need to interrupt all of society’s conventions, there merely have to be one thing unsuitable with us. (Possibly they’re just a little jealous too?)

However life is what you make it out to be. Life is yours to create. We’re all chained down by the burdens we place upon ourselves, whether or not they’re payments, errands, or, like me, self-imposed blogging deadlines. If you happen to really need one thing, you have to go after it.

Individuals who journey the world aren’t working away from life. Simply the alternative. People who break the mould, explore the world, and dwell on their very own phrases are working towards true residing, in my view. We now have a level of freedom lots of people won’t ever expertise. We get to be the captains of our ships.

However it’s a freedom we selected to have.

We appeared round and stated, “I would like one thing totally different.”

After which we went for it.

It was that freedom and perspective I saw in travelers years ago in Thailand that impressed me to do lead the life I’m now. I noticed them break the mould and I believed to myself, “Why not me?”

I’m not working away.

No.

I’m simply working in direction of my very own concept of a traditional life.

And I by no means plan to look again.
 

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