Work. Eat. Sleep.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
How many things do we do simply because that's the way that we've always done it?
I was in the Rat Race and in a lot of ways I thought I had the system figured out. I could recognize certain patterns concerning how things worked in this world that I was familiar with. I had formed habits, or forms of redundant repetition, to the point that I felt like I could do a lot of things with my eyes closed. I had done the same things so often that my body knew how to do it without my brain even being involved. My behaviors were basically memorized. Cruise control. I thought I had a good handle on this "life" thing.
I was wrong.
Betty, my girlfriend, and I had enjoyed our local weekend or overnight backpacking trips for a while. We liked to try new and somewhat challenging things and push ourselves. We knew about that place called the comfort zone and we felt good about how we were testing it.
But it wasn't until we sold our house and all of our possessions that we truly understood the concept of comfort zones. Once we began living life on the road we found ourselves constantly in new and different and challenging situations. This concept of comfort zones took on an entirely new and distinct meaning. Not only was it comfort zones, but every concept that I previously had was stretched beyond recognition.
There was no more comfort zone.
There was no more tried-and-true.
I had to redefine what these even meant to me.
We're always seeking the familiar and the reliable. Everything tells us what we want it to - until we ask it to tell us something different. When I changed my entire lifestyle I was no longer doing things the same way as I had always done them. My questions changed and, of course, so did my answers. Everything was new but everything was still the same. But the new was always there, hiding amongst the old. I just took the same world and looked at it a little bit differently.
We all have the capacity to believe whatever we want to about ourselves, our abilities, and the world around us. If we believe it, it's because we choose to.
Traveling has shown me life from a different perspective. Traveling has shown me that it's as much about looking inside of ourselves as it is looking at the outside.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Pic by Coffee And A Map