About Traveling
Road Trip USA – Epic Journey 2016-18 Part I
Why still travel? What's stopping me from finally living a normal life? Actually, we would have everything we need: Friends, family, a roof over our heads, always enough to eat.
I think time is of the essence. I need time. If I don't have time, I feel unhappy. If I start to forget about time, I know that it is high time to change something.
It starts with the fact that every morning at home the alarm clock pulls you out of your dreams. No time to sleep in. Maybe it makes a difference whether I curse it anew every time or whether I don't mind being woken up and even look forward to missing as little of the new day as possible. Whether I have to go to work or not. Nevertheless, I picture the start of the day to be more pleasant.
On the last evening, before we left, we discussed stress at Seraina's parents' house. That there was positive (eustress) and negative (distress).
Logically, if you are exposed to one too often, which is common in our society, you are threatened by the ominous burn-out (what does burn-out mean? Where does the expression come from? It simply means: going crazy, smoking, losing the thread). Distress leaves you empty in the evening at best.
If, on the other hand, you don't feel stressed enough in your life, the consequences are no less severe. They are perhaps more subtle, more difficult to recognize.
In his book "The 4-Hour Workweek," Timothy Ferriss wants to know what the opposite of happiness is.
No, not bad luck, nor sadness. The opposite of feeling happy is being bored. Not finding any impetus. To take each day for granted.
So what is happiness anyway? Fun? Joy in life? Yes, certainly. But it is, above all, excitement. In life, it is to strive for excitement to make it as perfect as possible. Imagine: Whether the alarm clock rings or not, you get up in the morning and await the day with excitement. Can't you already feel the smile on your face as you throw back the covers? With joy, you hop out of bed, left leg first for all I care and face the challenges of the day.
This brings us back to eustress. Don't think of difficulties as problems, think of them as challenges. They put you in turmoil, demand everything from you. But once you have overcome them and reached an intermediate goal, you feel fulfilled instead of drained.
It is similar to Thai massage. In the course I took years ago, it was always said that there is good pain and bad pain (in Thai massage, high, sometimes painful pressure is often applied to the body). The bad is the one that remains after the treatment. Not good. The good, on the other hand, is felt only at the moment of pressure on the muscle. It turns into a relaxed, painless feeling of well-being afterward. Distress, eustress.
I often wonder about one question. Some people like to go to work. Can't you face everyday life excitedly, knowing that you will soon be allowed to go back to work?
With some thought, I concluded that the question is wrong. I have to ask: Can you? Are you bored with the daily grind? Do you feel fulfilled in life? Or don't you?
Of course, it is possible to go to work with joy. But that's something everyone has to decide for themselves. And more importantly, once a decision is made, act on it. Nothing comes from doing nothing.
An apt quote on this:
There's no difference between a pessimist who says, "Oh, it's hopeless, so don't bother doing anything, " and an optimist who says, "Don't bother doing anything, it's going to turn out fine anyway." Either way, nothing happens.
Yvon Chouinard
Or as the wise Chinese knew, who wrote the following on a fortune cookie:
Many a false step was made by standing still.
Back to my original question: Why am I still traveling around the world?
Simple. The security of the daily routine bores me. I forget that I have as much time as always, feel distressed.
A knot forms in my stomach. Time to act. So, rather unconsciously, I've decided to go for eustress. Thousand times better to not know what's going to happen tomorrow than to suspect I'll still be standing in the same place a month from now. Better to achieve small goals every day than no goals at all. Carpe diem. Even if I lie in the hammock for a few days now and then, in the end, I have to pick myself up again. Life is waiting. Nothing comes from nothing.
Ready to go
Welcome back to NIMMERWO, welcome back to the US of A!
I didn't even dare to ask. But last night, over homemade pizza and California wine, the conversation turned to the presidential election. I wondered how Americans feel about the Hillary/Trump dilemma.
And I was right. Especially here in the liberal Bay Area in and around San Francisco, where the "Land of the Free" brand still counts for the most, they are loudly ranting about the candidates. "It's not only embarrassing, but it's also scary," says Ben Cooper, whom we met in Guatemala years ago and who is happy to host us in his Oakland home. It's not just sad and shameful that someone like Trump is in danger of becoming American president, he says, it's downright scary that this can still happen today, after the George W. Bush era.
He would even prefer Bush Jr. to Trump. "Trump voters don't see beyond their villages. It's not in their imagination to take a trip to Guatemala, for example, to see what else is out there besides America. They believe Trump's lies that he will take care of their little problems. They don't care about anything else, " Cooper continues. "We simply have to choose the better of two evils."
But enough of that for now. As we all know, politics leads nowhere.
I'm sitting on the couch - Ninja, Ben's cat is preening herself next to me - while outside the sun is slowly approaching the horizon and another summer day is coming to an end.
Ben's apartment is in a quiet neighborhood in Oakland, where we are fortunately allowed to stay for the first few days. But we won't have to take advantage of his hospitality for long. Our van is down on the street, ready for whatever misdeeds we want to do to it.
Robert from Berlin, who traveled here in it from New York, has already incorporated a bed into the night-blue Ford so that we only have to take care of the kitchen utensils to perfect our new home on wheels.
We plan to leave on Friday to visit our friends up in the Anderson Valley. If that's even possible, we're relaxed and excited at the same time. "I feel like I won the lottery," Seraina says with a sigh.
If you enjoyed this post, share it any way you like. Thank you 🙂
Epic Journey 2016-18
Forward to Part II:
Sign up for the newsletter below to make sure you don't miss anything from Nimmerwoland. We welcome comments and hope you enjoyed the read!
Das könnte dich ebenfalls interessieren
Road Trip USA California to Washington
Through Mexico: Oaxaca – Yucatán
English 
Deutsch
One Comment
Pingback: