(No, not that)

For as long as I remember I've always wanted to see the world & travel on my own terms. Coming from a family of little means, my first priority was securing some income and saving, which I've been doing for the past decade (turning 27 next month).

Somewhere in the middle of this, buying a house next to the beach sounded like a terrific idea, but a few years down the road I question how wise that move was (having a house tends to pin you down to a location)..

While I travel 2-3 times a year, mostly every year, and explore $HOMECOUNTRY particularly during the summer, none of this comes close to what I dream about: Dropping everything for half a year or a year, and just fuck off for awhile & face the great unknown.

This desire has been dividing me lately, because I'm afraid there may not be an income waiting for me after being absent for that amount of time, and my area is a fast-moving one (IT), where 6-12 months out would mean a lot of catching up to do after coming back.

I think about this a lot, and now is the perfect time it seems - being young, healthy and single. The responsibilities I do have could be put on hold (work), erased (sell house) or sustained (let the mortgage payments keep coming in, resulting in (more) net loss, but not going under).

In retrospect I've always been telling myself that "next year" it may happen, but just yesterday I was 23. Time flies! On the other hand I don't want to shoot myself in the foot and be out of work (which is on very good terms right now, I work from home most of the time and pretty much keep whatever schedule I desire, provided things get done) when I come back, with a house to pay..

The thing that concerned me the most (money/security) is sort of taken care of - provided there's no euro collapse/ general mayhem, in which case there'd be bigger concerns anyway - so now I ask myself, is this it? What now? Keep accumulating resources? What for ?


Do you identify with any of this? Are you/have you going/gone through the same?
For the older people, is any of this stuff familiar? Mind sharing some thoughts?

just go

When I was 28 I quit my job in IT because I had always wanted to raise a family on a farm and work side by side with my kids. I had a really good paying job, a house that would have been payed off in a few years and lived in a place I really liked a lot. But I wasn't living my life on my own terms and I knew if I didn't take a chance and leave that I would regret it and look back on my life and know I had compromised away the only life I may ever get.

When I was moving away I would talk to people who worked at the same company as me and let them know I was leaving. They were in their 40s and 50s, had beautiful new large homes, the best schools for their kids, large amounts of vacation time, and great retirement plans. But the vast majority had the same regret in their eyes that I expected I would have had if I had stayed. They talked about the dreams that they had had. What they had wanted to do with their lives, but didn't because of their golden handcuffs. I'd never heard the term golden handcuffs before, but I heard it several times after I'd said I was quitting to move back to my families farm.

I've never met an intelligent ambitious person living on the street. If you want a roof over your head and enough food to eat and cloths on your back you will have it even if you quit your flexible job in IT. You might not have as much flexibility in hours or work location again, but you will be working on your own terms. After this time you'll never has as hard a time leaving to live the life that's right for you. You may never be able to afford to buy a house on the beach again, but you will have your life to go to whatever beach you want.

Decide what life you want to live and live it. I thought of it this way... Very likely your life is close to being half over already, if you screw stuff up you won't have to deal with it for all that long.

just stay

Life is an adventure but only as long as you live it as one. When you are falling into that deep sleep what will you regret most taking time off to explore life or not. Not one of us knows the future. There is no way to predict what will come. I went on that journey and it has cost me a lot but I would not think twice about doing so if I had the opportunity to do it again. That decision reminds me of a poem I once wrote:

Living in a world of numbers
Forces the mind to wander
To fields of daisy grass
Memories of childhood past
When did I dream of a fate
Where life would tally on the slate
For dollars and cents I have sold my day
All because I have forgotten to play
How many dollars
Would I sell an hour
Of my life and priceless time
Just to increase the bottom line
What would I pay in the end
To have one of those hours back again

I would go and I did. Go explore!

DO IT!...but maybe you can find a way to work part time while you're "on the road". I've done a good bit of traveling through a number of continents and using all means, car, motorcycle, hitch-hiking, buses, planes, boats, my two feet, train, hanging onto the back of a transport truck...but after awhile it seemed to get old, travelling and meeting all sorts of lovely people but not doing anything "productive". I think the need to feel like you're doing something "productive" is part of the western sickness, not being able to relax and be satisfied, but all the same, it seems to arise in many of the Westerners-turned-gypsies I've met.

If you already are able to work mostly from home, could you find a way to work from elsewhere on the planet? I bet you can find a way to satisfy that wanderlust and advance/not detract from your "career" at the same time.

I recommend a contract with a realtor, so they passed your house for rent.
This is my obsession for the past three years, just sleep and see, and from my perspective you are very lucky that you can just go and do it.

Thanks to all who replied so far. lysergify you're on to something and I've been brainstorming ways of connecting the dots. It should be possible to take the work with me, BUT I'm not sure whether I actually would want to.

Perhaps on an initial phase, to 'test the waters' ..


vovin you're right about life being an adventure. It's up to each of us to write the script.

applebaum that's amazing


lessless I was were you were not so long ago.. and of course those who already went, from *my* point of view, are "lucky", in that they've done this already and I'm still here fretting/worrying about it all.

I'd say you're on the right path already..