And It's A Battered Old Suitcase...

I mentioned yesterday that I don't have an answer to my dilemma, it turns out there is one and if what happened tonight is any implication, I have my answer already. It wasn't exactly unexpected, but certainly unwanted.

I've been trying to form some sort of a verbal answer for the inquiry of why I would travel on this particular journey for when it is asked by others and myself. I will be taking one entry here to discuss the more positive side of travel, and another for the side of travel thats serves as a hospice for hearts no longer a flutter. Travel is a hospital, where new ambitions and hopes are born, old hearts can be healed and helped, and where dreams can make the passage to their final resting place.

I thought about this for about a year before I worked on my decision. For friends and family, I can imagine this seemed like a rather odd lifestyle for me, considering my previous plans of grandeur and how much money I spent on my current and more luxurious lifestyle. Slowly, through an unexplainable series of thought processes, I came to the understanding of how continually unhappy I still was even after spending more money. I was used to the attitude of throwing money at anything to repair it (at least to match my concern). Money should be used as a tool, but I was using money as the tool.

That started the establishment that I would continue to be unhappy no matter how much money I spent on anything, and that meant I had to determine a few things. First of all, why was I so unhappy? Secondly, what could I do to become happy again? Through some deep searching (which is worth mentioning considering how hard it is to do when the soul you search has the footprints of society and family all over it; more on that later), I found that I wanted to travel and experience cultures outside of my own to be happy.

I began to set dates for airlines, plan for financing and for excused absences from my office for vacation. I was working on flying to Paris in December, and spending several months there and come back to work as a refreshed person eager to put his nose to the grindstone. However, as the date seemed to move farther away instead of closer, I began to think that this was solving the aformentioned problems in the sense that putting a Hello Kitty band-aid on a gaping wound would heal it. It could possibly help out temporarily, but it isn't going to help the problem in a more permanent way.

There I was, still with a problem and still without a solution. Then, an important revelation struck me, why was this a problem? Why did I feel like I needed to find something to fix the way I felt inside when maybe it didn't need to be fixed? With those thoughts came the excuses that seemingly counteracted them. These are the same excuses that others have told me about this or similar ventures in their life, and I have dealt with the same ones on my own. Any of these sound familiar?

• I won't have food or water.
• I need the security that comes with a job in my life.
• I won't have means for making money.
• I'll feel like I am wasting my life.
• I won't have any retirement money saved up, and I'll be sweeping floors at Taco Bell when I am eighty years old just to make money for medication.

I've heard and dealt with all of those and more. I've decided to address them here to help out others that may be struggling with this decision.

1. I won't have food or water. Remember when I said that I thought money was the tool, not a tool? This is exactly what I meant by that. Society has reached a point where we have made synonyms out of the terms "money" and "survival", it would seem. You do not need money to survive. Write that down. The road watches out for her children walking on her, and you will always end up with the food and water you need if you are helpful and willing to lend a hand to others.
2. I need the security that comes with a job in my life. Circuit City. Midway. Starbucks. Glaxo-SmithKline. Caterpillar. Sprint. Home Depot. Harley-Davidson. Microsoft. Google. Intel. If you worked at any of these companies and many others, the term "job security" doesn't mean a thing to you anymore. This sounds cynical, but trust me when I say it is the most uplifting way to say this; you don't have security in anything. Security should be found between Ronald McDonald and Tony the Tiger considering that it is an entirely fictional term. In a relationship? If you are, I picture that you feel pretty secure in it and your partner. Truthfully, that's a facade, and absolutely anything could happen to take away that security. That goes just as much for your vehicle or your home or your pets or your career. I know it sounds terrible, but it is important to understand that security shouldn't matter to you since adults don't spend their time worrying about figments of their imagination.
3. I won't have means for making money. First of all, we've went over the fact that money is only one tool that you should be using and you can use several other tools to get the items you may need (and still stay within ethical and moral boundaries). Even so, there are always options to make money if you truly need it. We tend to forget what a truly interesting age we live in; I can find a company going out of business in Florida looking for people to hold signs for them, and arrange to be there and a method of payment all while laying in bed and writing this blog. It all seems so normal to us now, but read that again and see that because of it, finding sources of financial means will not be a problem. Once more, the road provides for her children.
4. I'll feel like I am wasting my life. By what or whose terms? If you are wasting your life according to your own terms and you have greater plans for yourself than that, you should pursue it. However, if you are following the terms of your parents or society, strongly consider why you do that. We seem to all fall in line with what is expected of us. Live your life in the way that it makes sense to you. Write that down. If you are working as a lawyer but always dream of opening a store selling unusual varieties of rock candy, then do that. Our schools and teachers tell children that they can be what they want to be, but what we have been taught is that you can be anything you want to be (as long as it includes going to college, getting a degree, getting a good career in that field, meeting a member of the opposite sex and marrying them, having several kids and living out your life in suburbia). Hopefully, this is reaching you by this point so the most touching thing I should be able to mention now is to repeat the same thing you've been told over and over but this time, understand that it finally comes without the extra baggage. You can be whatever you want to be.
5. I won't have any retirement money saved up, and I'll be sweeping floors at Taco Bell when I am eighty years old just to make money for medication. This was the hardest hindrance to overcome, because this one is almost undeniable. Reaching that age, your options begin to lessen and you must rely on the options you have made for yourself in your younger years. However, my dealing with this came in the form of an agreement. I'm fine with working the rest of my days in order to bring the final chapters of my life to a peaceful closing. Consider the other option though, you spend several decades working in a cubicle and pleasing your boss so that you can enjoy your elderly years when you are much too old to enjoy anything. I'll sweep floors if I get the opportunity to lead this life.

Essentially, all of those reasons stem from what we have been taught about how society operates. You need money, you need a career to earn money, you need an education to get a good career, you need to get an education to be successful, you want to be successful. I'm about to take the worst step possible, according to society. To myself, though, it is the best step I've ever taken and I couldn't be happier with it.