If someone had said to me a year ago: “Now you pack your bag and are on the road for 3 years! Ride through Mongolia on your own with your own horse, hitchhike through South Korea and share the room in the Philippines with a cockroach! “I would probably never have gone. I would definitely not be going. I would have declared the person crazy, the project to be tired of life. Even if the adventure would have appealed to me. I would not have dared me. And then there is this eternity of THREE years. Not in Hamburg for three years, in my apartment and much worse, not with my friends. Inconceivably.
Then why am I going? And how could I do all of these crazy adventures? Where did the courage suddenly come from? – It was the small steps. I didn’t even think about how long I could be away. Just the thought of deciding what I want to do every day drove me. Day after day, step by step.
Nothing is fixed, I don’t have to persevere anywhere. I don’t even have to travel all the time. Can also just settle down on the beach if I feel like it. Or in a city that I like. The goal is not to travel the world, but to follow your heart. So just take one small step at a time. And by bus to Stettin is really no big deal.
If I wake up one day and my mood today says: “I want to go to Hamburg”, then I just do it. Nothing can stop me from getting on the plane and flying home. It might take 48 hours – or a few more – but then I’ll be back. Just because. No big deal.
On the other hand, my goal is big: the experience of what happens when I can make my own free decisions. And everything I could already experience through it. At least I find it something big, something I never dreamed of. That enriches me so incredibly. Small – and therefore feasible – the individual steps.
To admit the freedom not to have planned, thought through and prepared everything for some, admittedly, it is not so easy for some of the burly of German culture. You like to have everything under control and only feel grown up and professional when you have a clear view of everything. It does not work. Not when traveling. At least you miss exactly what makes traveling so incredibly enriching. Spontaneity, new things, surprises, encounters and the help of others.
The next time a task seems to be too big, no matter in what context, I will leave out all the detailed planning and theoretical papers – so do not worry – but the first small step. Towards the destination.
