I have been on the road now for 4 full months. Please understand that I am living my life in the best way that I know how. This is my dream, and this is something that I have been working to make happen for a long time. But that doesn’t mean it would be the best life for everyone. My sister has 3 beautiful children with a job that she loves, which is more than I could ever say about any of my jobs, and that is her best life. And neither one of these ways of living, whether it be indefinite or just temporary, is the right way to live. There is no universal right way to live. That is the beautiful thing about life. We each get one of them. We each get one precious life where we get to create what we want within our lifetime. For some people, it is taken away far too early. And what the “best" life is, depends on each individual. Setting your goals and dreams, and working towards reaching them is an individual effort. Nobody cares about your dreams, and nobody is going to make your dreams happen. You have to make it happen for yourself. But before you can make it happen, you have to understand what that is. It is easy to look at people’s lives on social media, and wish you had what they had, or think that they have been handed opportunities that you could never get. But try not to forget that people paint a picture of their life that they want the outside to see. The good, the beautiful, the happy, is typically surrounding most of what is posted on social media. But keep in mind that living a perfectly happy life with no struggles is unrealistic and doesn’t exist. You have to take the bad when you sign up for the good. If it wasn’t challenging, you wouldn’t appreciate it as much when you got there.

I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you that everyday is the best day of my life, and that I am happy every single day. That simply isn’t true. I have really great days where I am so appreciative of the many incredible things that I am fortunate enough to be able to experience. But I also have days where I feel down. I believe that living perfectly happy every day is a bit unrealistic. I have days where I don’t even want to move out of my air conditioned bed and go into the 98 degree humid weather. Somedays I don’t feel like getting asked by every single tuk tuk driver that I pass if I need a ride, or where I’m from, or if I want a joint. I don’t like getting hassled by children who are selling bracelets or asking for money barefoot along the busy road. And I don’t enjoy getting yelled at from the back of a tuk tuk “Obama sucked." But what I can tell you, is that in each of these days, I take the time to be grateful, and that in itself gets me through. "The antidote to fear is gratitude. The antidote to anger is gratitude. You can't feel fear or anger while feeling gratitude at the same time." (Tony Robbins) Somedays when I am feeling off, the best thing for me to do is to breathe, and remember where I am, and list the many things for which I am grateful. And it is true isn’t it? How can you be angry, or scared, when you are taking the time to appreciate what it is that you do have? Some days I don’t know where I will be sleeping, or what to do when I get there, or where my next destination will be. But the only one in charge of all of this is me. Sometimes I think about the money that I am spending and the fact that I will eventually have to come home to no job, no income, no house, and no security. That is a scary thought, and on my lowest days, one in which creeps to the top of my head. Sometimes I wonder if this trip has helped me to realize what it is I want out of this life, or if it has just simply prolonged my entrance into another corporate job. But when I let those things go, and just remember where I am, and what I am grateful for, those thoughts slip down, and my gratitude fills up my thoughts and lifts me up.