Editor’s Note: This is a guest by Tanya Whitehead creator of This Is My Wine.
How many times have you heard someone say that you should live every day as if it was your last? And there you are, having to pay your rent and power, the kids are at school, the dogs vet bill needs paying and you still owe on your car. Yeah sure, ain’t going to happen. Not in this lifetime, you mumble to yourself.
There are different ways of living your life as if it were your last day on earth. Someone would choose to go skydiving and swim with sharks in the ocean, another person would feel just as good curling up in bed in their PJ’s, leisurely reading a book and drinking thick sweet cocoa and cream. However which way you choose to do it, it is ultimately your choice.
YES! the person living in an expensive apartment with a hefty mortgage and kids in private school has just as much choice as the student living from hand to mouth in a rented flat. It is not about what you have, but what you are prepared to give up, that gives us this freedom. The choice part is all up to you.
If you want it badly enough, if you continually dream about it, then what is stopping you? You can sell your car, your house, put precious belongings in storage, (I do have some advice on that) quit your job and just go. So what is stopping you from making that choice? Fear of failure? Don’t worry, when you are lying on your deathbed, you will not remember this failure, but the failure to not have tried.
No income to do it? They say that life throws opportunities at you all the time, but so many times people miss them and instead of opening that door of opportunity, either walk blindly past or shut it hard.
Once again, it comes down to choice. And when you travel, whether you are moving daily from sunrise to sunset, from sandy beaches to snow covered mountains in the alps, there will be plenty of doors on that journey. You just have to be open to them and walk in.
So what makes me an expert in making choices? I have done all of the above. I have made good choices and bad ones. But whatever has happened along the way, the choice I made to live a life less ordinary was mine. (Helps to have a partner who also has itchy feet and homeschooled kids.)
I have done it four times. Once, when my daughters were 13 months and 2 1/2 we sold up and went backpacking around South East Asia and New Zealand for 10 months. When they were 2 1/2 and 4, we bought a classic wooden yacht and spent the next 3 years living on her in Cape Town, South Africa. 61/2 and 8, itchy feet once again won and we sold the yacht and went to live and travel around South East Asia for 18 months looking for Utopia. Utopia was found, in New Zealand, but still bitten, we once again flew across the waters when they were 11 and 12 1/2 and lived on a yacht in Malaysia for a year.
Be careful, it is infectious. When you finally realise that your life is really under your control, the power of choice is exhilarating. When I finally stopped, my biggest fear was of boredom. Not that I am an active adventurer, I just like to abandon drudgery with the choice to do something else. My choice now is to stay but already I am dreaming of building a house bus and going travelling.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
What choices are you making or thinking about making that are shaping your life?
