Fake It ‘Till You Make It

We’ve all ogled over photos on the Instagram accounts of "world travelers". How do they do it, we wonder? How do they afford the time and money to leisurely travel and take photos of their life journey? "Someday" we announce to ourselves, and each other, over and over. I am sorry to say that "someday" came for me, and it was just as welcoming as the pavement is when you trip on the sidewalk.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Traveling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”

Me: “…But maybe not…” (Leave it to me to learn everything the hard way).

My harsh reality check came in the form of a large woman at border control in the Heathrow Airport in London. I proudly marched up to her with my passport and immigration card all filled out. “What’s your business in the UK?” she asked. “Tourism,” I answered. “How long will you be here?” “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “How do you mean, you don’t know?” She looked at me like I just told her I was on my way to Mars. Why was this so difficult? “Look,” I said, “I know that I can be in the EU for up to 90 days without a visa. I’m going to leave before then.” “Oh really?” she snapped back. “And how do I know that? You don’t even know where you’re going! What’s your plan?” My face was growing hot. “I don’t have a plan,” I admitted. “Where are you from?!” she asked rhetorically as she flipped my passport over and saw The United States of America. “Figures,” she spat. “I have never been to Europe before,” I tried to explain, “and I wanted to see it. I want to go to mueums and stuff...” “And what happens when you are found in a ditch somewhere with my stamp on your passport?” she raved, holding up her stamp pad as evidence. “You see this? That’s my number on this stamp. And when they find you, they’ll come right back to me and ask me what business I had letting you into this country. And the only thing I have to tell them is that you wanted to roam the countryside.” My eyes started filling up with tears. “How much money do you have?” she demanded. I logged into my bank account and showed her my savings. “And how did you get this money?” she sniped. I explained to her my most recent jobs. “And what is your job now? How much leave do you have?” I was forced to admit that I had quit my job to come on this trip. She looked exasperated. “You quit your job to come on a thirty day trip in the UK? Do you have an apartment?” No. “So you expect me to let you into this country when you have nothing to go back to.” I was biting back my flood of tears.

Because of course she was right. She was voicing my innermost fears that I had been spending my energy suffocating every day. These were the exact things that my quote unquote “haters” threw in my face: all of the reasons that I am a poor adult.

“I am going to keep your passport,” she said, “and you are going to sit there in that chair until you come up with a specific plan and show it to me.”

That is how I ended up bawling on the floor of an airport bathroom, with no place to call home, the most alone that I have ever felt in my life. I tried calling many friends but no one answered my calls. I knew this lady was just doing her job. I knew she wasn’t “picking on me”. She was simply asking me the same question that I and everyone else in my life is wondering: “what are you doing with your life??” And I was bawling because I didn’t have an answer. Not for her, not for me, not for anyone.

And Emerson was right. Your giant follows you everywhere. And Alexander Supertramp was right: happiness is only real when it’s shared. And I was utterly alone in an airport bathroom in London having these lessons re-taught to me because I already knew them. But in the words of Queen Latifah in "Bringing Down the House", I guess I am just one of those hard learners.

While I was trying to come up with what to do, sitting up against a wall in the hallway in front of the bathroom, that lady came up to me holding my passport. “There you are,” she said. She appeared to be going on break. “I didn’t expect you to take so long.” She seemed gentler now (I’m sure it was evident that I had been crying). She handed me my passport. “When you go back up there, you need to be more convincing. Don’t give the same story you gave to me.” “Yes ma’am,” I said, followed by a “thank you” as she walked away.

What did I learn from all of this? That the old saying “fake it till you make it” totally applies to traveling.

Do you need to have your life mapped out to get through border control? Yes. But only “hopefully”. What I mean by that is, think to yourself what might be a good plan and present that with the confidence that you would have if you were defending your dissertation. For god’s sake, give them an exact exit date. Then, get your passport stamped, walk through, and see where life takes you.

This is a good life lesson in general. Do you need to know exactly where you are going? No. But at least pick a “hopeful” direction and march in that direction with confidence. Maybe it will work out, maybe you will decide to change paths. Everything is fine as long as you have tried. I feel good about myself if I know that I have given it my honest and solid effort.

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” — Christopher McCandless

Know that it is okay to not know, even vaguely, where you are going. One more quote, by Paulo Cohelo: “People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.”