Everyone Says I’m Running Away

Once 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 known as “Mother says I’m working away.”

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

We vacationers are working away from duty, being a grown-up, heartache, issues, and so forth, and so forth. 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 school 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 closing 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 will need to 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’re 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 the direction of all the pieces — towards the world, unique locations, new folks, totally different cultures, and my own idea of freedom. I’m constructing a life that makes me pleased.

Whereas there could also be exceptions (as there are with all the pieces), most individuals who develop into 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 from side to side.

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 pleased on our personal phrases.

Life is brief and we solely get to stay it as soon as. I need to look again and say I did thrilling issues and lived life alone 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 is perhaps totally different. In my country, the accepted path is lengthy and slim: you go to school, get a job, get married, purchase a home, have 2.5 kids, increase 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 bins you in and restricts your actions to their expectations.

And any deviation is taken into account irregular and bizarre.

Folks might 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, irrespective of how a lot their coronary heart pulls them. They’re merely fascinated by a life-style 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 slightly extra acceptable, the overall perspective continues to be “comply with the trail if you wish to be regular.”

Nicely, I don’t need to be regular.

I really feel like the explanation 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 should be one thing unsuitable with us. (Perhaps they’re slightly 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. When you actually need one thing, you have to go after it.

Individuals who journey the world aren’t working away from life. Simply the other. People who break the mould, explore the world, and stay on their very own phrases are working towards true residing, for my part. 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 seemed round and stated, “I need 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 assumed to myself, “Why not me?”

I’m not working away.

No.

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

And I by no means plan to look again.
 

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