Departing from YYZ… a lot of emotions that day!

I write this post as I sit in the business cabin, on route to Tokyo, a stopover before my my long term travel begins. I have a few hours to visit some of my favourite spots in the city before taking off to Bangkok (how did I get into business class? I didn’t pay for it that’s for sure! I have a travel hacking post planned! Stay tuned).

The last few days have been a whirlwind of final preparations, packing, saying my goodbyes and wrapping my life up at home. It’s hard to believe the moment I’ve been prepping for has finally arrived. I must admit, as I got closer to the departure date, I started feeling anxious and started having doubts.

I started to lower the amount of the time I expected to be travelling. Before my answer was 6-8 months to a year; then as the day drew closer and my mind started racing, my answer would turn into something along the lines of “Maybe 6 months, maybe less…” whenever anyone would ask me how long I would be gone for.

Then I started wondering, “What if I hate it? What if I realize while I’m out there that this is not what I wanted?”  I know that like most things, I wouldn’t know the truth until I tried it out, but the thought lingered in my head.  When I mentioned this to some friends, they simply said “Well then you come home. So what?”

“So what??”  That means I failed! At something I REALLY wanted, for a LONG time.

But then I realized something.

I realized I was allowing the uncertainty take me over. The whole point of my open-ended adventure around the world was because I desired the unknown. And now the thing I yearned for is the thing that is causing me to doubt my decision.

Once I realized this for myself, I put on the brakes whenever the big question mark pops up in my head.

And that’s the thing – there will always be a big question mark that pops up and makes us wonder about ourselves, our decisions and our options.  But it should be embraced rather than cause anxiety or doubt.

Uncertainty is not a bad thing; the unknown is not a big scary black hole. It is a wide open field that is endless in sight. You can do a 360 and choose any direction you’d like to go in. And if you don’t like what you see? Well then go in another direction.

So what, right?

Side note—thank you to all who have been following along so far – family, friends, FedEx peeps  you guys rock! 🙂