The Ghosts Of 2021

First of all, Happy New Year! I hope you’ve been well, happy, and peaceful as we move into this new season of our lives.

Ghost Of Christmas Present: Surprise!

I’ve been great! I surprised my parents by coming home for Christmas and New Year’s, and I’m currently writing this from Darien, Connecticut, in the house I grew up in.

I had been planning on coming home for the holidays all along, as my visa was valid until December 22nd and the round-trip ticket cost only marginally more than the one-way. I simply neglected to mention all these things to my parents, who were completely shocked to see me!

My brother picked me up from the airport; he and his wife had already arrived for the holidays. As we neared home, my sister-in-law discussed dinner with my parents without mentioning any extra placemats. I walked in and came to the family room, where a huge Christmas tree sat in one corner and they sat in the comfy, worn-out chairs I fondly remember.

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” they asked, stunned as if I was a ghost that had materialized out of thin air. It took them a few minutes to realize that I was, indeed, really human and really there. My mom cried a bit.

This is one of the bigger surprises I’ve pulled off, but it wasn’t completely out of the blue. Surprises like these seem to run in my family. Just two months ago, my parents drove nine hours to my brother’s house in Columbus, Ohio, and surprised him for his birthday. In November, they told me about and executed this plan, without having any idea of my plan for Christmas. They were smug, satisfied, and feeling clever, which I found amusing.

They’re not the only ones who can play that game.

It’s (Mostly) Good To Be Home

I like taking life in “chunks,” so coming home after my first 90 days living abroad felt like a great opportunity to process this experience. Indeed, I’ve been quite relaxed while here, living a very low-key lifestyle while enjoying a bit of time with my family and letting my subconscious breathe in familiarity for a bit.

Still, having been home for about two weeks as I now write this, I’m starting to feel the inertia shift of culture shock, even though I’ve barely left the house. While I love chicken parmesan, pizza, Peruvian food, and my mom’s baking — all things which I’ve been binging on during my limited time here — I’ve started to feel that bizarre, disorienting, nauseating pull, like everything is a tiny bit off. It’s the little things, mostly subconscious, like people arguing in the post office, the headache in the wake of additive sugar, speaking and hearing English, and using toilet paper instead of the little bidet thing, which make you remember you just traveled 10,000 miles.

“Spending 36 hours in airplanes and airports sucks, yeah. But I like traveling far,” I told Cream, my girlfriend, before I left Thailand. “It feels like you’re actually going somewhere.”

She nodded. “It’s like a different world.” Exactly. Even from half a world away, we have been video chatting almost every day that I’ve been here. With the 12-hour time difference, she gets up when I go to bed, and I go to bed when she gets up.

I miss Thailand very much. I especially miss the people — they are so kind, so humble, so sweet, and so friendly. The Thai word is “narak” — a word for “cute” that refers more to personality than appearance, which includes all of these attributes and is culturally seen as more desirable than merely “beautiful.” Their playful and lighthearted approach to life inspires me to lighten up too.

It’s so easy to be happy when you’re surrounded by such different perspectives. The troubles that you thought were so important don’t even register on their radar, reminding you that it’s all relative and open to interpretation, and that maybe what’s been stressing you out isn’t such a big deal.

I am enjoying my time here in the U.S., don’t get me wrong. But I do feel like I’m overstaying a bit. This isn’t my final destination, and it only has the echoing resonance of “home,” rather than the feeling of an entire new world shrunk to the size of a city or country, living and breathing its unique culture in every interaction and moment. It’s been nice to see my family and my guitars, but I haven’t been up to too much while I’m here; mostly just work. I feel ready to go back.

Ghost of Christmas Past: A Look Back At A Year Of Pivots

I don’t know about you, but I thought 2021 was a pretty great year. (Granted, I feel that way about every year, but still.) But, as has been true of the past two years, it was a year of pivoting and adjusting to new circumstances.

For example, I had more flights get canceled than not, and my plans to move abroad were considerably affected by the ever-changing list of quarantine requirements, border closures, and yes, virus strains. At this point, I’ve gotten used to it.

There is a lot of irony in the continuous pivoting because in many cases, the changes in my plans led to even better ones emerging. For example, when my flights to Bangkok got canceled, I was able to reschedule for a later date, allowing me to spend more time with my family and record my second album before I left. It also let me change my inbound flight to Phuket, where I could quarantine in the Sandbox Program and roam around the island for the duration of my stay. Hanging out on beautiful beaches all day was pretty great — especially compared to two weeks of staring at the wall of a fancy Bangkok quarantine prison– err, hotel. (Not to mention, it cost a third as much.)

I want to go pretty much everywhere, especially in Asia. Originally, my next destination was going to be Sri Lanka, where I planned to live for a few months beginning in January. But once more, my flights got canceled. I used this as an opportunity to slow down and let my life keep developing, and I decided to stay in Chiang Mai.

I’ll be flying back in about a week. In lieu of the Omicron variant, Thailand has reinstated quarantine. I’ll serve my time for seven nights in a Bangkok hotel this time around, but I’m planning on using the time productively, so it’s not as much of a bother. Still, I can’t wait to see my girlfriend and friends again.

Living Abroad Vs. Traveling

My decision to stay in Thailand is reflective of a much more significant philosophy and value system that I hold, centered around living abroad rather than traveling.

Spending a few months in Chiang Mai allowed me to settle into more steady routines and build both a life and a community. It’s brought a lot of love into my life, and besides my wonderful girlfriend, I’ve made a handful of very close friends that have become like extended family to me. I’ve also been more productive than ever, and the fact that I’m spending considerably less than I would elsewhere is icing on the cake. These things are only possible with an outlook of staying in a place for a while; a month at least, preferably several months or longer.

I’m not ruling out travel — ideally, I think it’s best to have a home-base city abroad from which you occasionally take a regional trip or two — but I’m against the aggressive continuous travel approach that many people attempt, which seems to be a straight path to either burning out, getting fired, or both. For me, everything starts from sustainability, and I make a serious prioritization to stay abroad, taking care of pressing matters in my professional and personal life. I can’t emphasize enough that I’m not just on vacation all the time — if anything, being abroad requires more responsibility than being back home, not less.

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Global Citizenship

The way I see it, living abroad is a privilege. I make sure that the work I do is up to the same standard no matter where I am, and my business takes priority over sightseeing. With the long-term approach, I also am able to integrate with my community and respectfully absorb its culture at a deeper level while having a normal life in a completely different context. Not only is this more sustainable than always being on the move, but it’s also more enjoyable. Constant travel, especially for more than three weeks at a time, is exhausting, and working 9-5 is the surest way to ruin your “vacation.”

I’ve mentioned this in past blogs, but I’ll mention it again. With the current move towards remote work, I anticipate more and more people will move abroad, particularly in the next decade. I believe we’re approaching a critical juncture where we will define what it means to live in a connected world. It’s possible that people will retain their own culturally relative values wherever they go and never assimilate and understand other cultures. But my hope, instead, is that we move towards global citizenship, where the lines between countries and cultures are blurred and eventually disappear, and the tourist and the local see they have more in common than not.

To be clear, I’m hoping for global connection, not global-scale gentrification. I mean going to another place and respectfully immersing yourself in its culture, allowing it to leave an impression and change you; not the other way around. It’s shockingly easy to forget that there’s a lot more to travel than just taking photos and eating tasty food. Every human is literally on the adventure of a lifetime, and travel is one of the most potent ways to remember how unique and special that is by providing radically different reference points.

My goal is to be a global citizen that happens to be from America, rather than an American that happens to travel the world. I think this level of cultural absorption is only possible with longer, more immersive stays abroad, rather than just short vacations.

That said, it’s never a bad thing to get out there and see the world, even if it is for just a few days or weeks. While I’m in favor of living abroad, traveling and getting exposed to other cultures is always amazing too.

Blessings In Disguise

Anyway, I started to reflect on how incredible my life in Chiang Mai is as my visa expiration approached and my stay there was coming to a close. While I was excited to move on to a new place, I felt sad about leaving my community and starting over from scratch.

In a surprising turn of events, I got an email while out with my friends one night that my flight to Sri Lanka (from New York) had been canceled. I was a little relieved, to be honest. I had realized that I wanted to stay longer, and now I could. It was another pivot that was a blessing in disguise.

Circumstances have also changed to make long-term life in Chiang Mai a more viable option for me, compatible with my insatiable wanderlust and fascination with culture. My ticket to Sri Lanka was in part motivated by India starting to reopen while all of Southeast Asia remained closed; now, India is closed again and Southeast Asia is all open. Originally, staying in Chiang Mai felt like it might limit my options for travel, but now this has reversed, and it is a viable home-base location to explore all of Southeast Asia, which I hope to do in 2022.

Travel During The Pandemic

While many people have been frustrated and anxious about the constant changes the pandemic has brought — closing, reopening, reclosing, and who knows what next — remember that these measures are in an effort to keep people safe and healthy around the world. I believe this is a greater good than any one individual’s personal desires, convenience, or satisfaction. Reminding myself of this makes me feel grateful for the opportunities that I have had, rather than disappointed about the ones I have not.

As my own year has shown, there are ways to work around the restrictions and still create a life you love without illegally sneaking into countries or forging negative test results. It’s important to stay flexible and remember that your actions are always in the context and risks of the world we live in. Nothing is certain, but hey — that’s life! If you’re really committed to making things happen for yourself, I know you’ll find a way.

Ghost Of Christmas Future: Setting New Goals

“Most people overestimate what they can accomplish in one year, but underestimate what they can accomplish in ten.” — Bill Gates

Ever since I vowed to go a year without marijuana on December 31st, 2018 — the last time I ever smoked — I’ve taken my New Year’s Resolutions quite seriously. That step towards sobriety was one of the best things I ever did for myself, and when 2019 was my best year yet (at the time), it inspired me to push even harder on my goals. 2020 was similarly fantastic for me, as was 2021, and I still set ambitious resolutions that I intend to keep.

Sobriety has become the cornerstone of my happiness and productivity, and I believe this is because it has given me so many opportunities to practice delaying gratification. Meditation is similar in this regard — these two practices arose and continue to grow in my life together, and each supports the other. By having what now seems to be an exceptional ability to delay gratification, I am totally fine with keeping my head down and digging in my heels while I work towards ever larger and more challenging goals.

Making Resolutions In A Changing World

Of course, it can be hard to set a firm direction when things don’t always go as planned. Changes happen in life that lead you down different paths than the ones you thought you’d take, but this is part of the fun. While I fulfilled all of my 2020 resolutions, I didn’t completely reach all of my 2021 resolutions, in large part because I moved to Thailand. I had not anticipated this move in the slightest on January 1st, and it led to such significant changes in my lifestyle that my original goals were no longer aligned with my best interest.

For example, I decided to break a resolution by choosing to eat meat again in Thailand in order to have a more authentic cultural experience. In part, I was able to make this choice by also recognizing that meat production is more ethical outside the U.S.

Not to worry, though. I still satisfied my goals to the best of my ability and made a huge amount of progress and growth in the past year. For me, the most important New Year’s Resolution every year is complete sobriety, and as long as I fulfill that one, I seem to grow and appreciate my life more.

2022 Resolutions

Anyway, that brings us to the present day. Here are my resolutions for 2022:

• Sit two 10-day meditation courses (this can include one 9-day Satipatthana Sutta course).
• Meditate two hours every day.
• No intoxicants of any kind.
• Visit five new countries.
• Live abroad the whole year.
• Release my third album.
• Continue studying language and become proficient enough to dream in another language.

I’ll briefly point out a few things about these resolutions that, in my opinion, make them more effective:

• They’re all clearly measurable. Either I do the thing or I don’t; they aren’t open to interpretation.
• They’re continuations of things that I already do, or variations of things that I have done, that make me happy.
• I genuinely want to do each of these things.
• They’re ambitious, but not so ambitious that they’re impossible.
• They’re all steps in the direction of who I want to be and grow into.

I mention these to help you make your own goals for the year. The above five points are where I generally see people struggle to follow through. Many people set goals that are not clearly measurable — I call these “intentions,” not goals — or they’ll set goals that require unrealistic, huge shifts from their current life to achieve a particular result that they might not even want, on second thought.

We’ll see how my resolutions go. To be honest, I have no idea how my year will turn out. While I made all my resolutions happen in 2020, 2021 held such a giant shift in my lifestyle that my goals shifted significantly too. We shall see whether or not that happens again in 2022. In either case, I am certain that this will be a great year, and I know that I will work hard towards whatever it is I am currently focused on. I predict that as long as I stay sober, I’ll remain focused, productive, and happy.

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I hope you’ve had an enjoyable holiday season and start to 2022. Please stay safe and healthy, and remember to be grateful for the things you take for granted.

What are your resolutions for the new year? Any big plans? Leave a comment below!

With peace & love,

Andrew

P.S. Where do you want to travel most in the world? Maybe I’ll see you somewhere abroad this year!