One Impulsive Decision Sent Me On Unplanned Journey 500 miles Away From Home For A Whole Year…

How does it feel to go unprepared on an adventure in a far away foreign land for 12 months?

Philip David
4 min readJun 6, 2022
Photo by Taylor Nicole on Unsplash

“No, sir, I am calling from the Budapest office.” This sentence echoes in my head for more than half of the day. It still sounds absurd when I think about it. Not even one year ago, I was working my ass off in the small shop in a town the size of a district, having no clue that my life was about to change on a dime. Well, I guess that’s how things work out sometimes, no? One moment you’re wallowing in the comfort of your parents´ nest, and just the next one, faith rips you out and sends you on a journey 500 miles away from home.

It’s not that I am some chary wimp afraid of his own shadow, but having your life entirely changed in a blink of an eye can lurch anyone out of their comfort zone. Even though I had moments of fear and panic — no shame in that — my spirit still craved adventure.

Being stuck in a monotonous, low-paying job, I was reliving the same day over and over again. It sounds like the beginning phase of human spirit decomposition, which is gruesome and sad at the same time if you ask me. Letting the life energy stream through your body may be a relieving experience for the soul, but your mind could be a tough nut to crack. Every day I wake up, my head tries to digest one thing — I live in Budapest, earning solid money for the work in the most modern business center in the whole country.

One year ago, I couldn’t even dream about this. I hope you get it by now how fucked up this whole journey is.

An opportunity to live a different, more meaningful life was all I wanted since my early teenage days, and thanks to the help of many people, I got one. You could guess the reasons why I left my hometown, but the truth is that I was still playing with marbles and slingshots when the idea of escape infiltrated my thoughts. Quite strange, but it is what it is.

I just couldn’t see myself happy in this place. If we talk about nature, it is an inviting country — beautiful cinematic sunsets on the lonely, dreamy beaches are only a few hours away from breathtaking mountain tops. Everything besides that is hopelessly rotten: politics, economy, education, social system. You name it.

Lord has cast a Cimmerian shadow across this tiny, godforsaken piece of land, and nothing indicates that the future will be any better. The shadow is so deep that no bright mind can illuminate even the slightest beam of hope for a better tomorrow.

The land is just not fertile. And what do you do when you can’t grow the seeds of potential? You search for the soil that can let you grow.

But I don’t want to justify my decision with this bs excuse.

Call of the wild has been whispering to my ear for quite some time, and it still does. Louder and louder each day. My hunger is penetrating slowly through the walls of settled life, and with the way it unfolds, I am afraid I might do something that will haunt me for a long time.

But you can’t tame the young, adventurous spirit, can you?

And I don’t think I should feel guilty for that too.

From what I’ve seen so far, people either live to tell a story or mourn over the one that could’ve happened. Those painful what-ifs bury the kid within them alive with melancholy, leaving the grownup carcass to spend the rest of its age blaming the evil faith.

I don’t want to die young, but I don’t want to waste my life either. A regular path is just not meant for me. I know it because my guts say so — and if there is one thing I learned, it’s to trust the gut feeling more than anything.

It was a tough, and unpredictable climb to reach this point, but the view leaves me speechless every day. My goals are big. And I am hungry. With great excitement, I am ready for the next chapter. Bring it on!

If you like apple pie (and if you enjoyed reading this story), feel free to click on the link below to subscribe to Medium and support me by following my account. Link: https://medium.com/subscribe/@filipthewriter

--

--