dreaming

I’ve been so into “glow up” activities lately. They’re basically self care and makeover things that make you feel good about yourself/make you healthier! Here are some of my goals:

“Life isn’t about getting and having, it’s about giving and being.”

“It’s so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it’s taking forever to come. Then it happens and it’s over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.”

“You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy. You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like. If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way. Set fire to your old self. It’s not needed here. It’s too busy shopping, gossiping about others, and watching days go by and asking why you haven’t gotten as far as you’d like. This old self will die and be forgotten by all but family, and replaced by someone who makes a difference. Your new self is not like that. Your new self is the Great Chicago Fire—overwhelming, overpowering, and destroying everything that isn’t necessary.”

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.