How the dream of travel can hold you back

Recently, I’ve started wondering whether I’ve played some small part, through social media and blogging, in making some people think that the secret to happiness is to go out into the world on a grand adventure. I also wonder if I might have fallen into that trap myself.

For many years now I’ve been convinced that the thing I’m looking for is not happiness; it’s contentedness. Happiness, I now believe, comes in fleeting moments that we should be grateful for. Contentedness is a sustainable state of being: no matter how bad things get, no matter how seemingly routine and boring, no matter how complex, we can still be content.

Travel and adventure are wonderful passions to have. There is so much one can learn about life and about oneself by going out into the world. Travel and adventure have given me rare moments of clarity of mind and heart. They have made me, I feel, more tolerant of others and even of myself. They have given me so much food for thought about faith, politics, human rights, human potential, and what it means to be alive.

There are some things you can only truly learn when you expose yourself and your “givens” to others and to their givens. There are some things you can only truly learn when you shake the foundations of what you thought were truths. Travel is one of many other ways that allows you to do this.

I say this to emphasize that my aim is not to downplay the role travel can play in finding ways to learn and grow. It just isn’t the only way.

Travel, a Longing, and the Ultimate Destination

There is a longing inside of me. 

I can suppress it for weeks at a time. But eventually it resurfaces in a way that I can no longer ignore.

There is a longing inside of me.

That longing has shown me how big and beautiful the world beyond my tiny little one can be. It has shown me that within me lies another world the depths of which I’ve barely touched.

That longing has taken me places. It has taught me things. It has pushed me beyond every limit I thought I had.

There is a longing inside of me.

That longing has placed me face-to-face with my fears and anxieties and has told them to go fuck themselves because I’m going to do this anyway.

That longing has shown me how I can be incredibly weak yet exceptionally strong in the same moment.

That longing has made me dream.

A Life of Adventure Impossible to Have

It’s back. 

The restlessness.

I almost thought I was cured.

I came back from an amazing two months of cycling across Europe and I finally felt content.

I was happy just recovering from the after-pains, relaxing and reading a book, watching my crappy reality television shows.

I found pleasure cooking for myself and for my family at home after two months of eating at restaurants.

I was enjoying testing out my general fitness by going back to the gym and by trying to run again. I discovered that I had great lower body strength, I ran 5km faster than I ever had before, my cardio was going strong, but I have zero upper body strength, my hamstrings aren’t stretching the way they used to, my knees make crunching sounds whenever I go up stairs, and I feel lots of pain all over my body after a normal workout at the gym.

I’ve been back for 19 days. It’s only been 19 days. And I feel – again – that something significant is missing from my life.

I need purpose. I need a project. I need to be doing something. But not just anything. I need something I can be passionate about again.

Bring It On, 2014!

When you have a blog that you update semi-regularly and when there are a couple of people out there in this world who actually

Our 2013 Reminder Jar

read what you write, you feel a certain sense of obligation to your vast audience of two to write something special to bring in the new year.

I’ve been thinking of what my New Year post should be about for days, writing words in my head and then almost immediately afterwards erasing them (in my head too, of course. That’s how it works). Sometimes I begin writing great words of wisdom. And then I go back in my head and remember all the blog posts I wrote about how confused I have been this year and decide that is probably not a wise road to take. Other times in my head I write a summary of all the things that have happened to me, at me, around me, and in me and quickly realize how boring all that is even to me let alone to everybody else. I do want to write something, though. So I decided that I would do what I always do: I’ll sit down and let the words flow out of me. I’ll just be me.

At the beginning of 2013 my husband and I started a 2013 Reminder Jar.

When I Die…

When the day comes and I am lying on my deathbed or breathing my last breath, it is important to me that I can look quickly back on my life and feel that I lived it to the fullest.

I thought I was doing well until recently.

I can say with a certain degree of confidence that throughout the various phases of my life I have lived in a way that the Nadia of that phase wanted to live. I don’t have any regrets I can think of. Even when I have made horrible horrible mistakes I know that I made them consciously and decisively. I am aware they were mistakes. And in the process of making those mistakes and in their aftermath I have learned much about myself and the world around me.

I periodically ask myself, “Nadia, if you die now, will you feel content with the way you have lived your life?” And the answer has almost always been, “Yes.” Sometimes it has even been, “Hell, yes!”