When I started traveling I based all my decisions on a lack of a reason rather than an actual motive. I believed so full-heartedly in the “why not” I thought I could convince everyone else of it too. I believed in going and doing things for yourself before you’ve missed your opportunity.
I created a nomadic lifestyle. I’m still young so I get applauded for taking risks. Society has decided that because of my age, it’s okay I’m doing crazy things and brushing “a real job”, “a real savings”, “a real-life” aside.
I won’t have that support forever. “This stage shouldn’t last forever,” says the world. Soon, I will have to know my reason I make my decisions for my own sake. And I think I finally discovered why I do what I do.
And I didn’t like my answer.
I travel out of fear.
Fear that I won’t get opportunities again. Fear that I won’t have this age or this energy again. I fear the “normal-ness” of life. I fear that my life could potentially end before it ever started-literally and figuratively.
This sounds horrid and some of you might hate me for this but my entire reason for traveling wasn’t a desire to see the world. I didn’t even know I wanted to learn more about myself or any of those other awesome reasons we tell people why we’re traveling that’s socially accepted.
Because if we were honest, not all of us would be socially accepted.
Some of us travel to run.
Some of us travel because we don’t know where home is.
Some of us travel because we’re too scared to stay in one place too long.
And I’m here to tell you today, at this moment, that you do not need one freaking reason to get up and travel or live your life.
When I first started cruising, I truly believe it was out of fear. I had graduated and I had all this pressure to find a career and life-I ran. Now I'm passionate about the seas. Wow, how times have changed.
We constantly hear that we need to make every single moment matter. I’m going to go out on a limb here and disagree. Not every moment matters. Sometimes you’re going to make bad decisions and your whole life won’t alter. Stop obsessing over every moment and every year and every place in life that you think you should be in or want to get to.
Here’s how I feel about that - I’ve spent too many of my actual moments worrying about whether not I’m making them valuable enough-and guess what, one way or another, they’re still gone.
Please don’t stop traveling. Please don’t stop moving. If you feel like running, first I want to see you sprint. Sprint as fast as you can and eventually when you’re ready, not when society expects you to be, take a breath and ask yourself why you’re running. If you want to, keep running. When you’re tired you’ll stop. That’s it plain and simple.
So hear me now. Hear me clearly. You do not need a reason to travel. You do not need a reason to go. You do not need a reason to stay.
You can have a bad reason to travel. You can have a bad reason to go. But I sure don’t want to see you having a bad reason to stay.
Can’t you see how many moments you’re losing trying to figure out how to hold onto them?