I Quit My Job 6 Months Ago – More Musings on Travel

I like to throw in some of my general thoughts and realizations every once in a while, just to let you guys know what’s going in inside this little brain of mine as it gets put into new circumstances around the world. See here and here for similar posts.

As I type this, it has been exactly six months since I quit my job to travel. Six months since I last worked! Man, the time has really flown by! (Because duh, not working is awesome.) And it hasn’t all been perfection, as you know, with the dengue and food poisoning and occasional feelings of loneliness, but it has been everything I’d expected and a whole lot more.

I’ve been keeping notes whenever my brain conjures up something exciting relating to life, work, travel and this whole entire experience, so below are some of my thoughts, having been out of the working world now for this perfectly round and significant quantity of time. (The order does not indicate importance, I don’t think…)

Sometimes, even in the most spectacular of settings, I get this weird anxiety and unsettling feeling. It’s usually about the future or what the hell I’m doing with my life or just a nagging feeling of loneliness, and it really interferes with my ability to have fun. Then the fact that I can’t enjoy myself worries me even more. It’s like this self-perpetuating cycle. The one thing that stopped these feelings altogether was this particular thought:  I earned this. I worked, I saved, I purposefully didn’t buy stuff, I shopped at discount food stores (and cooked so many meals and ate so many leftovers), that I deserve this. I budgeted my face off and I planned and strategized. And this is my reward. So I should feel free to enjoy myself. Since coming to that realization, I feel so much better overall every day.

Just so you know, I was actually really, really, happy at home. I wasn’t miserable at my job. Like on a happiness scale of 1 to 10, I would say that I averaged an 8 living in Raleigh, maybe even a 9. I was (and am) very, very buoyant. But I just knew I HAD to travel now or I’d regret it because it was something I’d wanted so badly. In terms of the happiness scale while traveling, life on the road definitely has a lot more ups and downs than life at home, but it is SO worth it. And so much more exciting.

A few days ago, floating in the bathtub-temperature water off the Cambodian coast, I felt overwhelmingly grateful that this is my life. And those moments of profound gratefulness come more and more frequently while traveling. Nearly every day, I feel such gratitude that I’m able to do this, and that just adds to my conviction that I’ve pursued the right course of action for me. And of course, gratitude increases happiness even more.

I never miss work. Never. Especially not when I’m eating crabs for $5/kilo pulled straight from the ocean, drinking sugar cane juice next to a new friend from my guesthouse, receiving a detailed lesson in how to most efficiently eat crab from a local Cambodian couple. But…

Even when I’m shitting my brains out several times a day because I have food poisoning or starving myself for two days so that I don’t have to go to the bathroom during a 14 hour bus ride across the border or when I’m sick AND sweating under my mosquito net in a room of six people with no AC*… nope, I still don’t miss work.

*all of these things happened this week, FYI

Other things I don’t miss:  Doing the same thing every day. Sitting indoors all the time. Driving. Watching TV (Okay, well maybe I miss watching Carolina sports).

Things I do miss:  Cooking. Easily finding healthy, vegetable-filled meals. Cheese. (Hmm, all these deal with food.)

For less than a paycheck, I traveled Vietnam for a month. Trust me, this is not a commentary on how much I earned or bragging in the least. I AM bragging, though, about the value of Vietnam as a cultural, natural, and culinary destination. It was shockingly cheap and amazing, and it’s not that hard to afford a great trip like that… if only Americans could get that much time off work, ever.

You need friends. You just do. Even if you’re traveling solo. No man is an island… or something like that. But don’t worry, you’ll make friends. Easily. Just don’t be a weirdo. Or do. You’ll still find friends.

Speaking of, don’t be a dick to people you meet traveling. You may run into them again. It will be awkward.

Most people are good. Even the ones that won’t stop offering you a moto ride to your guesthouse that you KNOW is a block away. They’re just trying to earn that dough.

You are insignificant. Don’t take that in a bad way. Do you know how many people there are in this world? Do you know how (relatively) easy you probably have it compared to most of them? Bren has said this before, much more eloquently than me, but that insignificance gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. Seriously, stop worrying about what other people think. It really doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about what you’re supposed to do. You do what you want to do. Who cares what people at home say? It doesn’t have to be travel; it can be anything. (Personally, I’m sure there will be plenty of houses to buy and babies to have whenever I get back.)

If you drink bottled water when your tap water is perfectly safe to drink, you’re an asshole. You don’t realize what a convenience it is to be able to drink from the sink until you can’t. (Side note: I added this to my packing repertoire and people are always like, whoahh, wait, are you drinking from the tap?!)

I love the bum gun. America, get with it. They make going to the bathroom SO. MUCH. BETTER.

(Hey, I wanted to end on a lighter note.)

That’s all of the wisdom I’ve got for now. I do apologize for the abundance of talk about poop. I’ll post again once I’ve accumulated some more life and travel knowledge that I need to pass along.

Feel free to disagree below!