As some of you may know I have had the travel bug for quite some time now, but with work, and a life full of distractions it makes it hard to take the time to travel like I really wanted to. I had a goal of traveling for 6 months -1 year, mostly international. I didn't know how I would reach my goal but I knew if I wanted it bad enough I could make it happen. I started saving and had a 2 year goal for my departure date. I started paying off my bills as i realized that I could travel longer if I had less bills to pay, duh. At the time I was working as a manager at Verizon Wireless in Santa Cruz, CA and had been for over 8 years. Verizon decided in May 2017 to reorganize the company and let go many of their long time managers amungst other positions. I was an affected employee and had the option to apply for another position within the company or take severance pay- 2 weeks pay per year I worked. This equated to about 17 weeks pay and they gave me 30 days pay to decide without having to work. So 21 weeks pay or reapply and keep my seniority....Hmmmm I wasn't quite ready to travel as I really wanted to pay my car off to reduce my bills further. Having worked at Verizon for 8 years taught me a lot. The biggest take aways I had was that working hard didn't equate to success. I've been working very hard since I was 15 to become what I thought was "successful" and to in many peoples eyes and even society I had achieved success; Good paying job, good friends, nice car, living in a beautiful place but there was something missing. Time with family, time for me, time to find who I really was..."Purpose" to put it in one word. I have always considered myself more spiritual than religious but it wasn't till I stopped working until I really became deeply interested in it. I call it "my enlightenment" and ill never forget the day I had the perception shift in how I see the world. I read a quote from a spiritual teacher Osho who traveled the world speaking of mindfulness, love and how to live a fulfilling life. His teachings go against what are taught in the "west". Most of us think that if we reach our goals and become materially rich we will be happy. But Osho says this isn't the case. Instead we need to embrace who we are in the inside and only then can we live a meaningful life. This resonated with me and has become more clear with each passing day. Needless to say I knew I wouldn't have this opportunity to again for this experience. I was off to see the world! I put my 30 days notice in at my apt and started to plan my journey. This journey is more than just traveling and photography for me, this is about self discovery. I am creating this blog to document my travels, my life experiences, and the internal changes that I have and will continue to experience. I hope you enjoy my journey!
I might add my "Enlightenment" occurred after the 2nd month of travel and my real reason for choosing to travel was my passion for travel photography. It wasn't until later that things started to make sense. I'll touch on this more in month 3.