Leap of Faith

I have been sitting here, staring at my screen for about a half hour, trying to figure out how to tell the story of the struggle I have been in trying to write and post a new blog. I decided that my readers are smart enough to figure that out themselves, by the lack of posts made since the original in September, or October, or whenever the hell that was. And besides, any single person out there who has ever desired, or had to write an essay, blog, or novel, knows how difficult it is to just get yourself to the page. SO, I will not start my blog from there. It is a pointless task.

I will instead start from here, where I sit, in a local coffee shop in Burlington, Vermont, on the eve of the New Year, and just days before my departure to Hawaii. I must clarify that Hawaii is not my main destination. While I plan to travel and visit as many places as is humanly possible in the matter of a year or two, my main destination will be on bookshelves around the world. This adventure is, in fact, a leap of incredible faith.

I have recently decided that I have been following a path that was not my own, but set forth for me by my father. It has always been important to him for me to get an education. While I agree with him wholeheartedly, I also believe that there is a great amount of knowledge and wisdom that can come from traveling the world. Whenever I bring this up, however, he tells me to "go to school, get an education, find a good job, get married, have kids, and when the kids grow up, then you can go on a cruise or something." After a while, I began to convince myself that I had to at least go to school and get a good job before I could embark on my dream journey to write the book that is burning a hole in my heart.

A few months ago, I began to ask myself this question: "why am I not taking a more direct path toward my goal?" Would I rather live my life eating Ramen, and doing what I hate; or eating Ramen and doing what I love? In recent years I have been living on very little, and doing the things that I thought I should be doing, I could so easily be living on very little and doing the things that I want to be doing. Naturally, I have discovered that nothing really comes easily, especially when there is a disgruntled father involved, but I am finally on a path that I want to be on.

It is only now that I recognize the internal struggle, and can answer the question of why people do not generally follow a direct path toward their dreams. Unless your dream is to become a doctor or lawyer, or require some sort of training and certification, there is no distinct and oft tread path for us to follow. There may be some overgrown or distant memories of paths taken by those before us, but there is generally not any one distinct path toward success. We have to take the path less traveled, or stomp down our own in the overgrowth of the wild forest of this world.
This is downright frightening. Nothing is guaranteed. Our path could lead us to bliss, or an abrupt drop off. I know from experience that it is so much easier to find a routine somewhere where you feel comfortable. For me, that comfort spot was Burlington, school, some work on the side, and a social net (i mean this in both terms of social network, and safety net), where I knew everything, and everyone around me. Nothing was scary, everything secure and where it was supposed to be. I created a false sense of moving forward by going to school, and while it was moving forward in one sense, I had put my hearts greatest desire on hold.

Not anymore. I had an epiphany one sunny day in October while assisting for my friend and mentor SARK at Omega Institute. There is only ONE way to become successful at my goal: travel and write. That’s it. That is all I can do to accomplish my goal. I also had to redefine success. What is the success that I am looking for? To write a bestselling book? To Travel? To write? In the end, I decided to make each step a success. I can succeed at traveling. I can succeed at writing. I can someday succeed at writing a book. In the end, I found that I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew, and end up becoming overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. If I break everything up into little successes, they can soon accumulate to become a giant success.

My first success was making the decision to just go for it. The second was purchasing the ticket. I set the process in motion. Next I reacquired my job at the hostel, and now I will begin to pack my bags. Once the day arrives, I will board a plane for the first leg of my journey: Hawaii. For the first few months in Hawaii, I will relax, enjoy my time and some sunshine, and plan the next step from there. My intention is to plan my round the world travels, figure costs, and the time it will take to work and save. Once I have worked it all out, I will begin to work, save money, and start writing my book.

The journey began with a thought, a dream, hope, along with belief in me, my purpose, focus and determination. I am now on my way. As far as I am concerned, I am already a success.

Getting it together!

For the Love of My Creative Dreams

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

- Marianne Williamson

I have spent the last few years daydreaming about my ideal lifestyle: traveling the world, living out of a backpack, crashing each night in transient backpacker hostels, or on the floor of a stranger I met on the road. Every day I would wake up knowing that everything I saw would be new and exciting. There would be an adventure everyday; whether it would be learning the importance of bottled water (the hard way), or standing on a peak overlooking Machu Picchu.

I miss the days of sharing a room with 19 strangers; the days where I awoke to foreign accented curses being thrown around by one or more of the 19 room mates who waited for the single bathroom to open; I miss seeing new sights and meeting new friends every day; I miss the uncertainty of what was going to come next, and the growing trust in the Universe to bring me exactly what I needed at any given moment (there were so many gifts to receive!) I miss travel.

It has been a long held dream of mine to become a travel writer. I have a particular idea set for a book (with the potential of being 2 books... or even a series!) that I would like to write while traveling the world. I have so many ideas that I am bursting at the loosely stitched seams that are trying to contain me. People try so hard to work toward living the life of their dreams. The fact is, my dream is not something that I could simply work toward. It is something that I have to DO.

So... I recently came to the conclusion that I have been taking the long way around to achieve my goal. It is a path that, while insightful and valuable in it's own right, is not my own, but that of my father's, or at least his idea of what is right for me. I love school, and the last three years have been really enlightening and valuable to me, but I have spread myself too thin, and I have become weary from the lack of adventure in my life. I thought that I had to get an education, a degree, a job as cultural anthropologist, gain experience, study some more, and gain notoriety of some kind before I could even think about trying to accomplish my dream. The fact is, all I really have to do to accomplish this goal is to save money, book my flights, and then WRITE!

After nearly three years at a community college, I took what I thought was the next logical step for me and my goals: I transferred to a state college that offered my desire major, Cultural Anthropology. It seemed like a great idea, and I felt that I was well on my way to getting that book published. Had I decided to stay on that path, I most likely would have accomplished my goal, though it would have happened much later in my life. The timing did not feel right. I moved to Johnson, Vermont. I felt as if I were a large fish that had been given a much smaller tank. I could not stretch. I could not swim. I was not engaged in the classes, I was not enthused or open to the lessons I had to learn in that space. I was not happy, I was not inspired, and I soon began to feel depressed and caged. It felt as if every thing was pushing me away from that place, from that lifestyle.

Six weeks into the semester, after giving it my best shot, I decided that it was not working out. I accepted the fact that I was fighting against the raging river that is my creative dream. I gave in, and let the water carry me, rather than battle it. It was scary. I had no idea what I was going to do. Earlier in the semester I had been accepted into the National Student Exchange program at Manoa on Oahu, and purchased a one way, non-refundable plane ticket to Hawaii. Now, I have no plan, and a one way ticket that I cannot get out of. It seems that it is time to trust in that ol' Universe again.

A few weeks after I decide to leave school, I assisted a workshop at the Omega Institute for my friend and mentor SARK. The workshop, Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper (based on the book with the same name) was the same workshop I had attended during my very first assisting opportunity with her. It was during that first workshop, 3 or 4 years ago now, that I had come up with the original ideas for my travel story. SARK has been incredibly encouraging and ever-so-supportive of my ideas and decision to now move forward with my creative dream.

So it is now that I would like to share with the world that on January 5th, I will be leaving for Hawaii, and will not return home until I have traveled the world to my hearts desire, and have written my book. My current plan is to live in Honolulu, work and live at a hostel while waiting tables, saving money, networking with fellow travelers, and exploring the islands. I hope to leave for my travels (exact destinations are yet to be determined) by September 2011. I plan to follow the summer, keeping the sunshine on my face, and smile in my heart. I will keep this blog as a way to communicate with my family, friends, and fans ;-D I hope that you will all follow me on my journey, sending me love, inspiration, and supportive thoughts from home, when I am feeling just a little homesick. It is my deep hope that my actions will inspire many others to do the same as I have, to follow your creative dreams through a direct path, no matter how scary, or how challenging it may be. I love you all, and thank you for reading!

This is a photo that I had my friend Adrian Bond photoshop for me. It is a creative visualization tool that I look at everyday so that I may someday manifest it in to reality!