At JFK Airport

So it begins…

Or really — so it continues. My life has been a wild ride thus far, and this is merely a transformation of that.

Still, it feels a little different when you choose and create your own adventure. I’ve been working towards this departure for some time, and it marks what I guess you could call a milestone: my first time living abroad.

But even that’s misleading, since I lived and studied in Italy for a summer during college, which would make this the second time I’m living abroad. My time in Italy felt like your average trip; just another college student spending just another summer abroad, with college-level responsibilities. These days, over 300,000 students study abroad every year. Not to say it wasn’t a challenge, but it certainly could have been turned up a few notches.

Far fewer people, after getting their degrees, decide to quit and switch careers entirely, opt for self-employment by starting a remote freelance writing business, become self-sufficient, and then travel the world simply because they can — which is what I am now doing. The past year has been eventful, to say the least. My current move feels much more like “living” abroad; it’s the culmination of a number of choices and a plan to send my life in a certain direction, and the achievement of a goal I didn’t know I had until quite recently.

I didn’t have to move to Thailand. I guess nobody has to do anything. But some bizarre combination of events, opportunity, existential boredom, and inspiration pushed me along this way over here. And some bizarre combination of letting go of control of some things, while trying to control others as much as I could, ended up building the path that I walked and continue to walk now. Suddenly, the opportunity was before me, and I decided to take it.

When I think about how many random things seemed to line up, how many others fell apart, and how many remain where I’m still not sure how they’ll turn out — including this trip, mind you — it’s hard for me to even really care what the path is. All I know is that I’ll walk it with my full heart, open to wherever it leads. 

In this past year of growing independence, self-sovereignty, and maturity, I’ve come to understand that we’re all just trying our best to make sense out of something that doesn’t make any sense. So, do what you want, and don’t worry about making mistakes or the “wrong” decision. There are no wrong decisions. Want to move to Thailand? Get the opportunity to? Go for it. Or don’t. It doesn’t matter — whatever you choose, you’re right. My only recommendation is, don’t get stuck in indecision, because then you’ll regret things a lot more and wonder what could have been. Live fast instead.

Maybe you don’t need to know where you’re going. There are some questions you don’t get answers to — more, still, that you’d be better off not getting answers to.

I can’t hide the fact that I have no clue who I am, but to a large degree, I stopped caring and I just let myself be as I am, moment to moment. I live a good life, I laugh with my friends, I eat good food and am generally merry. Of course, at other times, I feel an emptiness so deep that I have no choice but to drop everything I’m doing and get to bed as soon as possible for fear of doing things I’d regret. Doesn’t everybody do that? As unpleasant as it can be, I’ve been through darkness enough times to know that it ends eventually, and usually I’m left better off after it comes and goes. There’s as much room in life for pain and confusion as there is for joy and bliss. One feeling flows into the next in rapid and seemingly random succession.

I’m not afraid of getting on this plane tonight. I haven’t felt any fear about this trip at all for the past four months, actually. Tonight is September 22nd, 2021, a cloudy and cool night here in New York. It’ll be the last cool weather I experience for a long time.

Four months ago, towards the middle and end of May, I did feel some fear. Why it came then, and not now, I do not know. Like I said, I don’t even bother trying to explain these things anymore; if it was here, I’d let it be here. Seeing as it’s not — that’s cool too.

In May, I felt fear about not knowing the future, not understanding if my choice to leave would serve me or not, and not having a clue how this move would affect my long-term goals. In my life, I’d love to build relationships, a career, and a community, and it freaked me out to think that moving abroad might possibly get in the way of growing these things. Was I getting side-tracked by a side-quest that ultimately was unnecessary and meaningless, and not in my best interest? I had to at least entertain the possibility, right?

Eventually though, I came to the realization that there are two mindsets: scarcity and abundance. My fears were rooted in scarcity — I feared that, by leaving, there would be a scarcity of opportunities for my future. If you ever think that, don’t believe it. It’s not that it’s not true; it’s just that you don’t get to know if it’s true or not, and if you let it rule your decisions, you’ll end up playing small. Only the ego fears scarcity — it’s just not worth going there.

Instead I took, and continue to take, faith in abundance. I try not to live my life thinking that I’ll never get something this good ever again. I take the opposite mindset, and believe that I can choose anything I ever dreamed of. When you think this way, there is no pressure to tread cautiously for fear of losing everything and living in anxiety your whole life; instead, you already have everything, and you get to choose and enjoy the life that you love most from all the opportunities in front of you. Even when you “lose” things, they often come right back to you, because the external world is really just a reflection of the internal one.

Abundance leaves me free to not worry about the future and instead just enjoy the ride, trusting that the path will show itself to me whenever the time comes — and it always has. I take faith in an abundance not only of opportunity, but also of time, people, and experiences. There’s room in my life for me to take this trip, and there never won’t be room, no matter how old I get; it’s only a matter of balancing priorities. I can’t explain how I know, but it is clear that this is where I am meant to be right now.

About a year ago, I sat on my third 10-day vipassana meditation course/retreat. In vipassana, by cultivating a purity of mind (pañña) through intense concentration (samadhi), one develops the quality of renunciation (nekhamma) within themselves. Generally speaking, nekhamma is the realization that you don’t need particularly much to be happy, at least not materially.

When I sat on that course, I had just quit my job with no plan for the future other than to “figure it out” however I could, which I was fully determined to do. At the meditation center, I met and made friends with several people who had learned to live wonderfully abundant lives with virtually no material possessions whatsoever. For example, I met a couple whose entire lives were carried in their backpacks while they bicycled around the U.S. They had tents, some rations for a few days, a tiny bit of money (which consistently is given to them by random strangers they meet along the journey), and sleeping bags, and they were some of the happiest, most peaceful people I’ve ever met.

Why is it that we fear scarcity, so that it grabs and holds our attention so much of the time? Why can’t all of us live like my friends and just be happy without having much, leaving us free to enjoy what we want to enjoy without worrying about opportunity cost?

Well, first of all, very few of us actually know people like my friends. I know many people who often think about living minimally, believing it would be a good life, but they don’t know anyone that actually does it. Those that we do know who live with nothing tend not to seem like they’re living good lives. We see the homeless in our cities, for example, and we’re repulsed and terrified by their struggle. We take for granted the comfort of our homes, beds, and jobs, and, understandably, we don’t want to be homeless.

But I think the fear is worse than the reality. If you needed to live off three dollars a day, I’m sure you could find a way and make it work. Not that it would be glamorous — obviously, it wouldn’t be (at least not in the U.S.). But you could survive.

There is nothing to fear about scarcity. What we fear is not scarcity; rather, what we fear is being challenged to adapt and learn — specifically, we fear failing to adapt and learn when we are challenged. But we sell ourselves short in the process, believing that we can’t rise to challenges — an assumption that is simply untrue. Most people learn more from being challenged than they do from being comfortable, because they didn’t know just how much they were capable of until they were finally tested.

Particularly in the past year, I’ve been putting this idea to the test. I moved back to Denver in May after a short stint at home and I lived there until early September. I did a little “experiment” where I attempted to see how much I could achieve in three months, pushing myself to learn and adapt as quickly as possible. To my amazement, I was able to accomplish quite a bit.

I booked a few concerts throughout the summer before I even arrived or had a band to play with. Upon getting to Denver, I formed two bands, both of which ended up being pretty awesome, and I played around ten shows in July and August. I continued growing my freelance writing business, increasing my hourly rates, streamlining my work and schedule, and connecting with some new clients. I met a ton of new people — friends, other musicians, and I even dated a few girls (not at the same time). I fell hard for one of them.

As I sit here at Gate A2 in Terminal 4 at JFK Airport on a cool September night on the brink of a giant adventure, I can’t help but wonder if her hesitancy had anything to do with knowing that I’d be leaving just two months after we met. I don’t get to know the answer to that one, and when I asked her, it was clear that she didn’t either. But there’s nothing to worry about — people don’t get to know the roles that we’re meant to play in each other’s lives until we finally play them. Instead, I’m amazed by simply how fast we developed such strong feelings for each other — if it can happen once, it can happen again; the rest is just details. There’s no need for any more tears. I’ll be getting on a plane in the next fifteen minutes and she, well, won’t.

There’s a lot of things I’d like to forget and put behind me, my hollowed-out spatiotemporal memories of her not least of all. But beyond that, life in America often seems like a jumbled mess of narcissistic entitlement, everyone believing that they can have a life exactly as they want without any regard or connection to others along the way. (Perhaps I am guilty of this too in my own unique way, as you surely must have considered by now while reading this.) Everyone fears not getting what they want instead of embracing the inherent mystery and challenge of life that leads us to grow. And to make matters worse, the capitalist system socializes, extols, and encourages this fear as a virtue to exploit consumers for its own gain.

In Thailand and in general, I want to forget who I think I am and to explore other ways of being. I don’t want to have anything to do with this consumerist game where we’re all always at each others’ throats, terrified of the future and not getting what we want. I don’t like how it makes me feel, act, and be, wrapped in a tight (and usually subconscious) knot of habitual selfishness. I’ve felt existential nausea for my entire life — there must be something more out there.

Right now, withdrawal into a vastly different situation seems like the best bet to find it. It’s the one I’ve always taken — I don’t know the answers, but I know I’ll try bizarre and uncomfortable things to make a serious effort to learn. Moving to Thailand, I’ll be forced to figure a lot of things out quickly, and I’m excited to see how I respond. 

I’ve always been a fast and flexible learner, so I’m sure I’ll do fine — I’m not the least bit worried about making ends meet. I’m more just excited to be in a place where I don’t know anyone, and where no one knows me. It’s like I’ll finally be able to rest and relax. I’ve needed that for a long time. 

Maybe that’s why I don’t feel any fear tonight — because I know that whatever happens on this trip, I’ll be okay. That leaves me open and available to just enjoy it as much as possible, whatever form it wants to take.

It’s a special form of silence to be both fully confident and fully alone. I already sit for two hours each day in meditation, and I take more than my fair share of time alone. But still, I’m never quite far enough from friends or phone. To be 10,000 miles away on the opposite side of the planet — now that’s some alone time.

There’s irony that, at different points of my life, I’ve been lonely. But not particularly right now. The way forward has shown itself, and I trust it.

Anyway, it’s about time I get on this plane. I’m not sure what exactly I was trying to say in this rant; just, perhaps, to take a snapshot of myself and my state at this moment of my journey — the beginning of an intercontinental adventure to a mysterious and friendly land on the opposite side of the globe, far from everything I’ve ever known. I don’t know where I’m going or what’s going to happen, but I have full faith that whatever it is, it will be exactly what I need.

So, here I am at my gate at JFK airport at 8:52 pm, a moment in time on the approach to the apex of a metaphorical ridge with a rich and vivid sunset on the other side. The closer I get, the more the sky fills with color. Shortly, I shall see it, leaving the world and the trail of the past behind me, entering a new valley and walking a path I’ve never seen before. I can’t help but be at least a little excited.

Wherever you are in the world, and wherever you are in this moment on your own journey, I hope you are enjoying it and not worried so much about where it leads. You can worry all day without realizing that you have other things to appreciate and pay attention to — and without realizing that there is nothing at all to worry about. Let go, and abundance will take care of you. You don’t need to know where you’re going.

Don’t forget to smile along the way, and please be kind to yourself and others. Bon voyage!

With peace & love,

Andrew