The ups and downs of the road less traveled
The road less traveled. Off the beaten path. Going against the grain. Swimming upstream. Boats against the current.
It sounds appealing, doesn’t it? To do something different, to be unique in this melting pot of a world we live in today? It’s a nice fantasy to conjure up when you’re bored out of your mind on some stupid assignment or when you’re frustrated because you’re stuck in traffic again. Many dream of it, but very few actually take the leap.
I took the leap. Or I am taking the leap, anyway. I’ve not landed safely yet, I’m still floating (and sometimes falling) down. It might be the case that I find out that there is no safe landing for these kinds of leaps. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
I’m just full of clichés today, even though I absolutely detest these kinds of sayings. But they do get the point across: I am trying to do something that is a little out of the box of normal society. Why? Because our “normal” society gave me depression, anxiety, and general unhappiness with life. So it was time to try something a little more different.
The rat race
What is the rat race? The Cambridge Dictionary defines the rat race as: “a way of life in modern society, in which people compete with each other for power and money.”. The Dutch meaning of the phrase is a bit different. In Dutch, a rat race means that someone is doing a series of rather useless or endless actions that offer no results. The phrase is often accompanied by a rat running itself ragged in a hamster wheel.
To me, it was a combination of both. What was the point of working yourself to death, hoping you still have some energy left to enjoy a little of your life during retirement? That is, if you made it in a relatively healthy state all the way to retirement and if your pension was enough to support you. We give so much of our life to our work, just so that we could get a bigger house and a nicer car? There are a few unicorns out there that genuinely like their job or value the impact they are creating in their job, I’m just not one of those people. I enjoyed my job, and I truly liked my colleagues, but it was not worth grinding away +40 hours each week, only to hope that I still had enough energy in the evenings or weekends to do something I wanted.
However, I was told that was what you were supposed to do as an adult. Get a job, move out of your parents' house and save money to do more adult-y stuff. If everyone was doing it, then it must be the right thing to do, right? Before I knew it, an entire year had passed, and I felt like I had accomplished nothing meaningful for me. I had accomplished lots of things at work, I moved into an apartment and I was saving money, so in terms of the rat race, I was right on track. But still, I felt more miserable than ever, because I couldn’t get that question out of my head: what was the point of it all? What exactly am I winning with this rat race?
I am not someone who craves power or money. I’m happy living a simple life, even if that means I have to give up on some comfort. I also found that modern society just moves too fast for me. Keeping up with everything is just so exhausting, and I just don’t want to do it anymore. And that’s okay. I’m not special. The world will keep on spinning even if I’m not engaged with it 24/7. My heart beats to my own tune now, and I’m getting as far away from the rat race as I possibly can.
The Ups
These days, I’m pretty positive about how everything is going. Things are moving forward at an incredible speed and yet I’m still impatient for everything to start. As of today, my trip is less than a month away and I want to pack my suitcase and get on that plane.
Preparing for this next phase of my life feels like moving forward. I’m taking deliberate steps to achieve something I want. When I was still doing the 9-to-5 grind, it felt like I was lived by life, and not that I was living my life. Each week, I finished projects, and I took on new projects. I had coffee chats with my colleagues and went out with my friends. Before I knew it, another year had passed and the only thing I had to show for was a promotion. That couldn’t be it, right? There had to be more to life than that. Now, I am an active participant in my life, and not a passive spectator anymore. I am conscious of all the decisions I make and all the experiences
Not being a spectator anymore is important to me. I only just recently learned that I did that a lot in my life. I was always waiting for something to happen. Popularity, academic success, finding true love, I was expecting it to just somehow happen to me. Because once I had those things, surely life would be great, wouldn’t it? But such things rarely fall into your lap as by magic, so I kept waiting and waiting.
I’m a little embarrassed to say that it took me so long to figure out that I needed to action myself. I am the only one responsible for making those things happen. That’s not to say I can control everything, but I can sure try to get myself in the best position possible to make those things happen. So I did. I wasn’t happy with my work situation, so I found another one. I wasn’t happy in this country, so I’m going to travel around the world.
If this journey so far has taught me anything, then it is that I am capable of a lot more than I thought.
The Downs
That’s not to say everything is sunshine and rainbows. I can’t deny that every now and then, doubts creep in. There’s a reason people like their golden cage. It’s comfortable and safe. Jumping into the unknown might sound exciting, but it’s a whole lot of scary, too.
The annoying part is that my brain isn’t to be trusted right now. After suffering some setbacks because of a near burn-out at work, I had to go back on anti-depressants. I’ve been off them for a little over five years, but the work situation got too much for me to handle. I don’t see this as a failure. My brain sucks sometimes, and then I need a little help to get the chemical balance back on track.
After I decided to quit my job, I felt much better. Combined with a bit of intense therapy, I felt good as new. I wanted to start my adventure as a digital nomad with a “clear” head, so I (and my doctor) decided to wane me off the anti-depressants.
Waning off of anti-depressants is safe if you follow the instructions of your doctor. It takes some time for your brain to re-adjust to life without that little chemical pill, though, so you can expect to feel a bit off some days. My brain is doing that right now and combined with the already uncertain future of being a freelancer with no proper place to live, doubts creep in easily.
What have I done? Is this really the right path for me? Am I just throwing away my savings and ruining my life? Am I being a responsible adult or am I just running away from my troubles? These are all questions that pop up every now and then. There’s not much I can do about it, because I don’t have an answer to them. I know in my heart that I’m doing the right thing for myself now. If I don’t do this, I’ll always wonder ‘what if’, so now is the time to find out. Will it turn out like I hope it will? No idea. There’s only one way to find out, though, and that is to do it.
So that’s what I tell myself when those doubts creep in. People mostly regret the things that they don’t do, and I don’t want to live with such regrets. If I’m going to regret something, I want to be fully responsible for it.