Everyone Says I’m Running Away

After I first began touring, my dad used to ask what I’m operating away from with my travels. One other time, a commenter advised me to cease operating away from my issues and to start out residing life. “Develop up,” he mentioned.

And, years in the past, there was even a weblog known as “Mother says I’m operating away.”

I’m undecided why, however there’s this notion on the market that anybody who travels long run and isn’t enthusiastic about settling down or getting a standard job should be operating away from one thing.

We vacationers are operating away from duty, being a grown-up, heartache, issues, and many others, and many others. We’re all simply Peter Pans refusing to be “adults.”

Whereas American society thinks touring is one thing everybody ought to do at one level, it’s solely hole years after school or brief holidays that appear to be acceptable. Get it out of your system and are available again into The Matrix.

These of us who lead nomadic existence, or who linger only a bit too lengthy someplace earlier than reaching that remaining homestretch, are all too usually accused of operating away.

Sure, go journey — however not for too lengthy, the world says. Accountable individuals don’t simply journey without end.

We nomads will need to have terrible, depressing lives, or are bizarre, or have had one thing traumatic occur to us that we try to flee. Folks assume that we’re merely operating away from our issues, operating away from “the actual world.”

And to all these individuals who suppose I’m operating away, I say: you might be proper.

I am operating away.

I’m operating away from your thought of the “actual” world.

I’m avoiding your life.

I’m operating in direction of the whole lot — in direction of the world, unique locations, new individuals, completely different cultures, and my very own thought of freedom. I’m constructing a life that makes me pleased.

Whereas there could also be exceptions (as there are with the whole lot), most individuals who change into nomads achieve this as a result of they need to expertise the world, not escape their issues. They’re operating away from workplace life, commutes, and weekend errands, and the company 9 to five. They’re operating away from the strict path society has laid out as “regular.” The one which makes us senseless ants marching from side to side.

We (I) need to expertise each tradition, see each mountain, eat completely different meals, attend loopy festivals, meet new individuals, and luxuriate in completely different holidays around the globe. We need to assemble a life that makes us pleased on our personal phrases.

Life is brief and we solely get to dwell it as soon as. I need to look again and say I did thrilling issues and lived life alone phrases, not say I spent my life studying blogs like this throughout my lunch break whereas wishing I used to be doing the identical factor.

Nobody dies saying, “If solely I had spent extra time within the workplace!”

As an American, my perspective is perhaps completely different. In my nation, the accepted path is lengthy and slender: you go to school, get a job, get married, purchase a home, have 2.5 kids, increase them, after which retire. Solely then, after you’ve put in your time, are you able to benefit from the fruits of your labor. Society bins you in and restricts your actions to their expectations.

And any deviation is taken into account irregular and bizarre.

Folks might need to journey, inform you they envy what you do, and say they want they might do the identical factor. However they by no means do. Few individuals muster the braveness to take the leap, irrespective of how a lot their coronary heart pulls them. They’re merely fascinated by a life-style so outdoors the norm.

Whereas social media, the rise of digital nomading, and web sites like this have made quitting your job to journey the world or train English in Thailand somewhat extra acceptable, the overall perspective remains to be “comply with the trail if you wish to be regular.”

Effectively, I don’t need to be regular.

I really feel like the explanation why individuals inform us we’re operating away is that they will’t fathom the truth that we broke the mildew and live outdoors the norm. To need to interrupt all of society’s conventions, there merely should be one thing unsuitable with us. (Perhaps they’re somewhat jealous too?)

However life is what you make it out to be. Life is yours to create. We’re all chained down by the burdens we place upon ourselves, whether or not they’re payments, errands, or, like me, self-imposed running a blog deadlines. In case you actually need one thing, it’s important to go after it.

Individuals who journey the world aren’t operating away from life. Simply the alternative. Those who break the mildew, discover the world, and dwell on their very own phrases are operating towards true residing, for my part. Now we have a level of freedom lots of people won’t ever expertise. We get to be the captains of our ships.

However it’s a freedom we selected to have.

We appeared round and mentioned, “I would like one thing completely different.”

After which we went for it.

It was that freedom and perspective I noticed in vacationers years in the past in Thailand that impressed me to do lead the life I’m now. I noticed them break the mildew and I believed to myself, “Why not me?”

I’m not operating away.

No.

I’m simply operating in direction of my very own thought of a standard life.

And I by no means plan to look again.