Student of Life
In everybody’s lives, there are events that shape you. Make you into the person that you are. Sometimes you don’t even realize the impact certain things have on future life decisions and paths you choose to go down.
A few things come to mind when I look back at my life and how I ended up where I am. My mother passed away when I was 18. She was diagnosed with cancer my senior year of high school and passed during Thanksgiving my first year of college. I remember feeling a disconnect. I was numb at the funeral. I was standing there knowing that I should be sobbing, however, somewhere throughout the process of dealing with her sickness, I separated myself from my negative emotions and on some level of reality. Traumatic events tend to force people down one of two paths — one towards self-destruction OR another where you end up living for the deceased person. Where you refuse to do anything but try to live extraordinarily. You become locked in with the understanding that life is short. It can be taken away from you at any moment.
I’m not a perfect person, I have had my fair share of bumps in the road. I know that I’ll continue to be imperfect, but I won’t allow that to stop me from seeking an amplified existence in this world. A life that is filled with passion, travel, rich relationships, and spontaneous moments.
I’ve found that for me, life isn’t about what you do or your job title. It’s about the impact you have on other people. The impact you leave on other people’s lives. I remember growing up and coming across a lot of people who were conventionally successful. They had achieved the “American Dream.” Yet I remember realizing that there was something missing. They were unhappy with their jobs, their relationships. It was as if they were operating on auto pilot. It was always difficult for me to wrap my head around why they kept at the grind, wasting precious moments life when they could be doing something more fulfilling and less stressful.
For years, I tried so hard to make myself assimilate to society and convention. Like many people, there have been numerous examples of times where I have made life decisions with the subconscious intention of making others happy. I say subconscious because you don’t even realize that you are doing it in the moment. This framework and way of thinking takes you away from discovering what you are meant to be doing, or what would make you the most content.
A few months back, I was presented with an opportunity that would change everything for me. I wasn’t even looking for a job, when I connected with a friend of mine from college and one of the founding members of We Roam, Blaine Anderson. We started talking about travel, our love for it, stories and how she had just joined a startup based out of NYC with Sean and Nathan. She mentioned that they were looking to expand and that she had a feeling that I would really get along well with the two of them. She wasn’t lying. We shared the same values, vision, and idea of what a balanced fulfilled life should look like. They wanted to change the world. And I was in on their mission.
I’m writing this up in the sky, on a propeller plane headed to Prague from Belgrade where we will be kicking off the Orion Itinerary. Words can’t describe how excited I am to meet all of the Roamers and begin this amazing journey.
There’s this feeling that I haven’t had in a long time. It’s easy to question decisions you make, especially when they fall outside the societal norm. But for the first time, I feel completely validated. All of my life decisions led me to this point. I wouldn’t change a thing.
I’ll leave you with this quote —
“A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle aged habit and convention.”
Interesting in joining We Roam? Send us an email at — info@we-roam.com, one of our team members will be in touch!
