“Sometimes it’s important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it’s essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow.” ~Douglas Pagels Photo courtesy of VinothChandar, flickr creative commons
So yeah, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted on this blog. I needed a break. A long one.
Right around the time of my last post, I was in one of those “What am I doing?” phases. I was questioning my trip, my job, my passions, my next steps – basically everything. I felt out of sorts with my life, like I was just glossing over it, and desperately needed some down time. At the same time, I was traveling for work almost non-stop and was exhausted. No… not just exhausted, I was burned out. I found myself not being able to motivate myself to do anything but sit on the couch on the weekend (all my body wanted was sleep) and I broke down crying at the thought of getting on yet another plane flight. Everything for my trip was out of whack: timing, house renters, budgeting/saving… and I felt tremendous pressure about getting everything done in order to leave this February.
I felt guilty about not posting. I definitely had lots of ideas for posts, but found I could only concentrate on what was in front of me at a particular moment. After a conversation with my dad, I came to the realization it was okay to push my trip back, to give it more time, and do what I needed to for myself and to get everything in line. And once I let up on myself and gave myself permission to push my trip back, the weight lifted.
So, its not a bad thing to take some time out to re-evaluate. To give yourself space. To let go. To stop pushing. To breathe. To rejuvenate. And to disappear. During my time away, I figured out a few things:
1. What’s *really* important to me. Quite honestly, what’s really important to me is not this blog. (Sorry. OK, not really). What is important are my friends and the connections I have with them, how I live my life everyday, waking up with energy and passion for how I spend my time, and exploring what’s new around me. What’s important is my lifestyle, not what’s on my to-do list that I have to check off. This blog was on the to-do list which made it easy to push it to the bottom of what was important.
I want to spend more time on my photography and get really really good at it – enough to develop more of my own style and be amazed by myself. Good enough to make some money off it during my RTW trip. And I want to learn more about creative post-processing and fun things like infographics. So I need to spend my time on those things and resist investing my energies in things that don’t serve to feed my soul.
2. I’m not quite sure what my “voice” is for this blog. But that’s okay. Since I started this blog, I’ve spent way too much time concentrating on writing what I thought would be insightful and inspiring posts and not enough time writing from my heart about what matters to me. Here’s a shocker: prose writing is difficult for me (not so with business writing). I’m not a trained writer nor have I ever wanted to be a full-time writer. I have no idea where I want to take this blog or what it will turn into. I hesitate to give it a theme lest I feel limited in what I can write. So… I won’t.
I do desperately want to write amazingly profound material that makes people sit up, take notice, and nod their head in agreement (like Kim from So Many Places or Susannah Conway or Christine Gilbert), but I don’t think I do at this point. Turning this blog into a full-time writing career is not what I’m after and I know it so I’m not going to push myself to try. Blowing out the marketing for Trail*Licious and aiming for a million readers or likes on Facebook aren’t my goals either – they may be someone else’s, but I’m not going to take those on. I’m going to write what I want for me and see how it goes. (Your comments are welcome!)
3. It’s important to take care of myself first. I invested my energies in traveling every week for work and was giving myself to my work even when it didn’t serve me anymore. That’s how I got burned out. The last seven months of 2012 I only scratched the surface of each day and didn’t really LIVE – I was in survival mode. From one plane, meeting or timezone to another, my life was lived somewhere else instead of in the present moment and I left a part of my soul untouched. I may have some amazing photos from last year, but I can’t get those days back. And I sure as hell don’t feel like I was part of my own life or was truly invested in it. I guess that’s what fast travel does to me. 2013 will not be like that. My RTW trip will not be like that. I’m going to be very protective of myself and where I spend my energy this year. I will slow down and be present in my own life each and every day.
4. The pressure I was feeling was from no one but myself. I was holding on to a February 2013 leave date for my trip and the closer it got, the more stressed I got. I was obsessively checking my savings account and rethinking my budget every single day. I was miserable and was crumbling inside. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get everything done I needed to while I was traveling every week for work. But I kept on pushing myself because February 2013 was when I said I was going to leave. It took an outsider’s perspective to make me realize that I was the one who was pressuring myself to meet that deadline. I was the one who set my budget and my savings strategy and I was holding myself to it when it no longer worked. Once I took the pressure off and gave myself permission to change some details about my trip (it is MY DREAM afterall, no one else’s), all the stress and worry melted away. The biggest lesson I learned through all this is to not hold on to something too long when it doesn’t work for you anymore.
So, after a couple months of being MIA, I’m back with a new trip timeline (January 2014 departure), a new budget, a new outlook, and my feet on the ground at home. I’m not going to set a publishing schedule for Trail*Licious so you’ll receive posts when I think there’s something to write about. Until next time, happy 2013 to you!