I’ve now been traveling for a bit over six months. Over that time, I’ve seen some of the world’s most amazing icons, ridden a bike past stunning scenery, experienced some of the most exhilarating encounters of my life and met more wonderful people than my meager brain can even recall right now.
So, now what? With the start of the new year, people have been sharing all sorts of resolutions, bucket lists and various other plans for the coming year. When I read those proclamations, I get jealous. Not of their particular goals, but of having goals.
At the moment, I know very little about what I want out of my life. I know I want to continue to travel. What I don’t know is why. I don’t know what I hope to accomplish or even what I want to see. I’m just making it up as I go, which is great for a while, but I can’t keep that up forever.
When I started this journey, I had a lot of goals. I dumped many of them on the side of the road as the reality of the trip set in and as I decided that a lot of them were goals that really didn’t appeal to me. That’s natural when embarking on a journey unlike anything I’d done previously.
This brings me to my current conundrum. I’m having an amazing time and I don’t, in any way, regret my decision to leave my job and home to travel the world. I’m not tiring of being on the road, I’m not running out of money, I’m not homesick and I’m not lonely. All those predictions from friends and colleagues have been utter failures, which pleases me (sorry guys).
However, in the back of my mind, I always believed that this excursion would be transformational. Whether it’s Stella getting her groove back or eating, praying and loving, lots of terms get tossed around: “spiritual awakening,” “inspirational,” “life-changing.” Thus far, I feel none of those. Maybe the women who said I had no soul were right?
Maybe the women who said I had no soul were right?
One of my friends has said a few times that I’m on a quest. I agree. But the question that remained unanswered is “a quest for what?” I had no idea. But I am starting to figure it out.
I’m on a quest to find my passion. Throughout my life, I’ve rarely felt passionate about anything around me. Jobs, friends, relationships, causes, hobbies. Don’t get me wrong, I care about all of those. I love my friends, I enjoy my hobbies, I’ve worked hard at my job, I’ve had deep feelings toward women who have been part of my life. I laugh and smile constantly. I’m happy. But I have always felt like my passion-meter scarcely rises above a 7 on a scale of 10, except in brief and sporadic spikes.
I want to find something that pushes me to a 10.
So, evidently that’s my goal for 2011. To discover what my passion is. That’s actually a pretty big epiphany. It gives me something to grab onto and work toward. It may be loosely defined as a goal, but at least it’s something I can build from.
What does this all mean? Well, a few things.
First off, I’ll be dedicating some attention to that topic in my reading, in my thinking and in my writing.
Second, I’ll be sharing more of my personal thoughts and introspection in this blog. It may bore you to tears and lose 99% of the readership who came here solely for my silliness, but I’m feeling like it’s time to dig a bit deeper. Anyone left reading will learn more about me than they ever cared to know, but I’m letting it all out. Okay, not all, but more.
Third, my posts will be more frequent (theoretically). I plan to start treating this more as a daily journal. Some of the same elements will be here – travel photos, brain drops and stories from the road – but I’ll also be writing about what’s on my mind, what I’m up to and where I’ve been, even if they don’t make for an interesting topic to anyone but me.
It could be my thoughts on a book I read that week, it could be a person who annoyed me that day or it could be a photo of me eating scorpions (hmmm… scratch that last one). One of my regrets from the first 6 months of this trip is that I didn’t capture more of my thoughts and emotions on a daily basis.
One of my regrets is that I didn’t capture more of my thoughts and emotions on a daily basis.
Finally, I’ll be writing along the way about my “passion quest” as I work toward defining what comes next in my life. Maybe that means it’ll be a weekly post dedicated to the topic, maybe not. I’m not sure yet.
There you have it. I can’t promise that my posts will be filled with humor quite as often, but I do guarantee that my trademarked goofy attitude is still with me and will weave its way into my scribbles more often than not. I just hope you can tolerate the forays into more of the inner workings of my brain and a blog that’s more about me than just about what I’m doing.
If not, I totally understand. Please leave the 3D glasses in the bin on your way out.
