February 3, 2016
TRAVEL
Travel is a choice. Often people think it is unattainable, or way too expensive.
I don’t think anything is unattainable anymore. I really don’t.
Yet, sometimes I do. Sometimes it is hard for me to see the “normal” things in life as attainable. Like buying a house in Southern California in this current reality market. But lately even my thinking on this is changing and I am beginning to see the dream of a house as something that is attainable.
“You spend MONEY on what you VALUE.”
It is easier for me to put things like traveling around the world in the attainable category. That has been my life, that has been my normal for so many years. It’s the journey that I have been on.
Out of college I chose to travel. Someone asked me what I was going to do after graduation and without even thinking these words flew out of my mouth:
“I am going to travel around the world.”
Once those words escaped my grasp I had a VISION. It was something that I still could not see or even fathom. I mean I had no money and student loans hanging over my head. Yet over the next nine months that vision took shape and I eventually set foot on a one way flight to New Zealand on the first leg of an around the world journey. Little did I know that first step led to six trips around the world in seven years.
I chose to go around the world and got STUCK IN A RUT.
I just kept going and in some ways it kept getting easier. It became my “normal” to spend the year in fifteen to twenty different nations. One of my mentors in college shared this quote with me:
“Choose your ruts wisely.”
That really stuck with me. In life we often get stuck in a “rut.” Usually that term is spoken in a negative light, but it does not have to be a bad thing. The term originally came from horse drawn carriages and the ruts on the road they would create. This rut would keep the buggy going straight on the path.
It is important to be able to see the RUT you are in. Or to be able to look ahead when you find yourself at a fork in the road. To have vision to see the different paths, options, or even the odd path where you must cut your own rut.
This is what it is all about. Cutting your own path, discovering the route that you were created to take. Many people do not take that first step out of the ordinary. Yet if you have the courage to step out of your current rut and explore the unknown, you may find a path that fits your feet perfectly. You will find that it is not that difficult, different or weird at all. You will find that path becomes yours. Or maybe just embrace the reality that it was your path all along.
Have courage.
May you find yourself in a good RUT today.
note — I wrote this while floating in the air at 38,000 ft — workout side-note — I got 45 min in the gym this morning — it feels good.
Good post today Will. What may have the appearance of adventure to one, might just be someone stuck in a rut escaping vulnerability. Context is the key though huh? Cutting your own adventurous “rut” is, most times, going to look a lot different and lead to other destinations than someone else’s rut.