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I am writing this from the deck of the co-working space in Koh Lanta. It took a while and a bit of a meander to get here but here I am. I left Kochi just over two weeks ago, then spent two weeks in Singapore before heading to Koh Lanta.
It has been a journey of learning a lot more about myself than I thought. I was focused a lot more of the things I was going to achieve and hardly at all on me. Instead I have had to deal a lot more with me.
When I was first thinking about doing this trip, a part of my motivation was to introduce a bit of unpredictability and discomfort into my life as I felt I had gone soft — being unwilling and even unable to deal with things not being exactly as I want them to be. But it was to be a small part of my trip — get a little uncomfortable and deal with it, build some resilience, and move on. It was almost like a mission in a role-playing video game to gather skills and weapons before fighting the big boss.
And as I found out in Kochi, that is not quite true. Some many things out me out of my comfort zone. I am not talking about the big things like falling sick — but of minor things like not being able to shower exactly how I would like to bothers me. Where did this come from? Last time, I went on a month-long trip I camped most nights and was quite comfortable showering in a variety of caravan parks and camping grounds. I was more objective focused – shower to get clean – not experiential focused – how does the showering experience make me feel.
Is it merely a function of age and a comfortable lifestyle? Or is there something more? Have I receded from who I used to be? Why? What was the catalyst? Also, how do I get back to where I want to be? I don’t want to be that which I have become — focused on reliving rather than living, focused on the past rather than the now, focused on experiential of the small things rather than the big mission.