Soul Searching is Dangerous Business

It’s overwhelming. Not the lack of english speakers nor lack of cash in local currency. It’s not the jet lag nor the haze in your brain from 24 hours without coffee. What is overwhelming is the sudden vastness you’re faced with. The realization that you’re an ocean away from everything you know.

For one week, I wanted to see what I would do when faced with not a single thing I had to do. So, to Thailand I went, without a plan, another person, or the slightest idea of who I’d find myself to be when faced with all of this vastness.

The first day there were tears. The silence of only my own thoughts made soul searching much more dangerous business than I could’ve foreseen. Probably set-off by exhaustion and the aforementioned realization that I was completely alone, and very far away from home. It took two hours, a shower, and a to-do list to get me out of my room into Phuket. Old habits die hard. I needed to create enough structure for myself to get out of bed.

“Three things, Layne, just do three things then you can succumb to sleep.”

1) Exchange money,

2) Find food, and

3) See something on “Phuket’s Must See” list.

One foot in front of the other. The first step is the hardest.

Once I made it outside, camera in hand, it was an easy rhythm of passing people by, sharing a smile, and capturing Old Town Phuket. What sounds leisurely was probably the hardest thing I will do all summer. The anxiety that accompanies a wide-open week in a new world is crippling at first.

When I start work in Hong Kong there will be a game plan. When I go to the Tech in Asia conference in Singapore there will be an itinerary. When I got to Thailand there was nothing. Just me, alone with my thoughts, and a week before another flight, to do absolutely anything.

So, I filled it with food, exchanged smiles, and very extended silence. People say math is the universal language but charades got me pretty far. The two pictured below had such sweet expressions when I passed the first time that I had to turn around and ask them to recreate the photo. Neither I nor they knew it then but I think they inspired the purpose I later found.

In the spirit of soul searching I made a list of things I thought I would need to feel my life was fulfilled - if you thought university students were naive and optimistic before just wait until they’re left alone with their thoughts on an island for a week.

The third thing on this list was “live in a beautiful place.”

I was in a beautiful place as I wrote it, but I didn’t feel fulfilled. There it was. The thing I needed to learn about myself was this: the quality of my life will entirely depend on those around me and how my work affects them.

So, I settled the soul searching. It took consuming my weight in thai food, at least a hundred wandered kilometers, hours in the ocean, a view of the sea [as pictured above], a mango smoothie, and communicating with people in broken english and hand gestures to find the people I want to serve. The work I do and create for others will need to serve and enable people in the 99% of the income distribution in the world. Optimizing, and in my opinion making less human, daily interactions for the 1% doesn’t inspire me. Bringing the 99% to the table, that interests me, that inspires me. Solving hard problems, that interests me.

Starting this summer in Thailand without the structure of a job or school was the only reason I was able to learn this and many other deeply important things about myself. Cansbridge allowed me to remove myself from the habits that limit how I think and I’m incredibly grateful for that.

Company: Heartisans Limited http://www.heartisans.com/

Position: Business Development Intern

Location: Hong Kong

A past Cansbridge fellow, Cam Sehl, recommended the company to me when I told him I was interested in a position with either a hardware or blockchain oriented company.

Job Confirmed: April 18th

Job Started: May 22nd

#CansbridgeFellowship2017