Ever since I can remember I have felt pressure in my life: pressure to fit in, make friends, get good grades and find someone to spend the rest of my life with.
Society indirectly puts pressure on everybody and, whether you realise it or not, society integrates the ideal life into everybody’s minds. This being that you should go to school until you are 16, then go to college and then onto University where you will find your soulmate, get married and at the same time have a career, get promoted and have children. Everybody is aiming for something and has the idea that they could always do better. They compare themselves to other people and, more often than not, no one is content with what they have so no one is happy.
When people fall short of their aims they feel they aren’t good enough, sad and sometimes even depressed.
I encourage everyone to travel; whilst travelling these pressures seem to disappear, you remember what truly matters and you get time to think for yourself and decide what really makes you happy. It allows you to return with a different perspective: a new idea of what you want and knowledge of how others live.
On my travels I have discovered the people who are the happiest and most content are those who come from the poorest countries as they are the ones who make the best of the situations they have been thrown into.
Compare these two ways of living: a man living on a beach in the Caribbean who owns a surf school; he isn’t rich but gets a steady flow of customers who allow him to make a good living. He also gets to surf everyday, meet new people and live in the sunshine. Compare this to an office worker who works 9-5, 5 days a week and earns a decent wage but has been turned down for promotion 3 times and is struggling to find motivation to do the job anymore. Who would you rather be? Who do you think is happier?
I’m not saying either of these ways of life are good or bad as people have their own interests and motivations; for some people working in an office job may be the equivalent of someone else surfing everyday.
I guess the point I’m trying to get across is if your job isn’t your passion, why are you doing it? Why spend the next 50 years unhappy? When you aren’t motivated to wake up in the morning you need to change something. This also refers to a number of different aspects of life such as relationships: if you aren’t happy then get out of it. The most important person in this world is you so you should do what you love. Live without regrets, remember what makes you laugh and remember what makes you happy. If it takes you the cost of a plane ticket to find out what it is: isn’t that worth it?
