The Times They Are A-Changin'

So, my name is Brian, I'm 30 years old living in Seattle doing online marketing at a technology company.  (Bear with me, I'm not a writer) 

Working at a fast growing tech start-up in Seattle is exciting and full of its own opportunities!  The company I work for is young and successful, with many very intelligent people at the helm carefully positioning the company to one day go public.  The last four years in Seattle have been the most formative of my life, attributing most of this to my time spent at this great company. 

After leaving my home in Indiana five years prior, having never been to Seattle or the Pac NW before, this company gave me a home and genuinely opened their arms to me encouraging my success.  Who thought a company could have such an effect?  This one really did, at least for me. 

View from office window-1/3/2014

However, as I write my very first blog post, I feel a rising anxiety as I reflect on the fact I’ve just put in my two weeks notice, and now, leaving my home for good!

After returning from a month long backpacking trip through Thailand, I returned a different person, a forever changed man with an unexpected new perspective of my life.

Stepping  to my computer (yes, I have a standup desk) the following Monday morning after I returned, sifting through a months worth of email, I realized...this isn't for me anymore.  

This was a new and uncomfortable revelation. It seemed, well, of course I feel miserable coming back after a month vacationing, everyone feels this way...so what was so different about this trip?  Well, nothing really, or at least I thought.   

I love Seattle!  I sometimes think Seattleites talk poorly about the weather just so others don't move here.  As I write this, the entire Midwest and East coast of the US are under a few feet of snow and without power.  

It's a nice day today in Seattle.

View from Kerry Park

Seattle boasts beautiful mountain ranges, exotic coast line, rainforest, desert, and huge freshwater lakes.  There's nothing limiting about living in this impressive state.  I learned to snowboard here and it continues to be a passion of mine.  It'll be really hard to not board in these stunning mountains in the foreseeable future.  

I've made great friends, and have met many inspiring people here in Seattle.  I'm genuinely happy living here in the Pac NW and thought I'd never leave...until now. 

Mt. Pilchuk, WA

Shi Shi Beach-WA Coast

2013 has certainly been a year of many changes for me.  

After ending a troubled relationship with an ex, I began seeing a psychologist about some personal set-backs I wanted to overcome (battle my demons), and thought this would be a good option since my insurance covered it.  

This was a profound experience, and really helped!  I would totally recommend it to anyone.  I told Ron I felt like we were the movie "Good Will Hunting."  He was a good dude, smart old hippie from the 60s. 

Around this time, I was introduced to meditation, and someone suggested I read a book called, "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself" by Joe Dispenza.

This book taught me how to understand meditation, how to practice in my daily life, and to literally change my thinking through positive energy.  

I began meditating as often as I could. 

At first, nothing was happening.  It wasn't until things started to slow down in the chaos of my daily routine when I realized I was changing.  I felt I could handle anything, and that nothing could bring me down.  My priorities became clearer, and things seemed to be easier to handle.  I felt genuinely positive about life, and stress seemed to slowly fade. 

Learning to channel my positive energy back into the worls has helped me feel more connected, and has lifted my subconscious to new levels of clarity. 

Now this feels like real change!

Being single and 30, I decided I wanted to travel the world a bit before any new life changes happened.  I wanted an adventure, and something I'd never done before, like travel alone! 

So last April, I traveled solo through Costa Rica, my first time extensively traveling alone.  I traveled through La Arenal, hiking up the volcano (on a torn acl mind you) swimming in the crater Cerro Chato at the top.  Zip-lined through the famous cloud forests of Monteverde, and beached bummed it up at the Rastafarian beach town of Montezuma.  It was amazing meeting people from all over the world, listening to others' travel stories and adventures really woke the travel bug in me.  

Hike up La Arenal (active volcano)

Soon after I returned to work, I realized I still had substantial vacation time available.  I quickly booked another trip, this time to Thailand, for a month!  How I was able to get this approved with work is beside me, but further illustrates how awesome this company really is.   

Thailand is nothing short of amazing!  Without going into too much detail about the trip, I can pretty much conclude this was the most life altering, perspective expanding, spiritual trip I'd ever experienced.  

I felt so alive and in my element while there.  I had no initial plans for this trip.  I wanted to "wing it," and try to figure out everything on the fly.  THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO TRAVEL!!  I would literally only book places one night at a time, leaving the opportunity to move on whenever with ease.  Most think this would be a stressful way of traveling!  It's actually just the opposite, and opens to you to many other possibilities and people.  I personally encountered many travelers who would go to these information brokers around the country, that would book your entire trip for you (for a commission), basically choosing where you stay, the amount of time spent places, your transportation, and the inability to make any plan adjusts along the way.  No thanks, that sounds stressful!  

Successful travel attitude:  No plans are the best plans!

Keeping my options open at all times allowed me to experience things I never thought I'd do.  

The best example would be when I left Bangkok to travel down to Koh Tao (small island in the Gulf), taking an overnight train and ferry to the tiny island.  On the ferry, I met two people from Portland, OR (small world), and we decided to hangout together later on the island.  Jason asked me, "So are you scuba certified, and plan to dive in Koh Tao?"  I didn't think much of it, and thought that would be a lot of money, so didn't plan to.  Come to find out getting certified on this island is the cheapest in the world, and would be asinine for me not to.  I succumbed to the peer-pressure and signed up with Jason and Michelle to get our scuba certification.  

Jason, Michelle and I 

We completed the certification process, and was so excited I actually went through with it.  I felt I was actually productive while on vacation- at least that was the praise I gave myself for not excessively drinking on the beach each day.  I never would've done this if not for meeting a very convincing guy from Portland who made me feel I'd miss a great opportunity if I didn't...he was so right!

The freedom I felt traveling this way opened my eyes to so much opportunity and so many different people.  I met many ex-pats along the way with amazing stories about how they ended up in Thailand, how they make a living as a nomad, and the amazing things some people were doing.  

I found the more people I talked with from other cultures, the more I began to reexamine my own personal values and country differently.  I realized the way I thought about my life, how I live, and the decisions (or lack thereof) I make are all predicated on fear! 

As an American, at least for me in the majority of my life as one, I've made my decisions based on fear!  The fear of the unknown and not having predictable control of my life was not an option.  You know, that 5 year plan we're all suppose to have?  

I spent sleepless nights stressing about what exactly that was, and what I was suppose to achieve.  Constantly compareing myself to others who are doing this or that, never feeling fully satisfied in my own accomplishments.  

Traveling helped me re-prioritize this fear, and the more thought I gave it, the more I realized how paralyzing the fear can be.  Then I began to realize I'm not that scared of the future at all really.  With the help of meditation, I began to calm my mind which helped me focus on what really made me happy.  

The fear of the unknown is very scary for most, and once very debilatating for me, but not knowing the future is always the case for each and every person.  It's just how we choose to approach it.   

Life is too short, and I'm the only one that has to wake up in my life each morning.  I'm in charge of my own happiness.  It's my fault if I don't feel fulfilled in my own life. 

I've heard all this before, but something felt different about how I was receiving these thoughts.  I continued to reevaluate my priorities and what actually mattered in my life.  I meditated on these thoughts for weeks.

On my flight back to Seattle from Tokyo, I was in complete disarray.  I felt I was leaving too early.  I felt uncomfortable returning to work and continuing to follow my same mundane routine.  I was exposed to too much traveling, and this life was just not up to par anymore.  I couldn't escape the thoughts of moving back to SE Asia.  I was losing sleep, often pacing in my living room deep in thought, sometimes dreaming about moving back to travel more.  It was consuming my every thought.

The personal growth I experienced over the last year and a half, and even in just the last month in Thailand, was only the beginning of my individual transformation.  I could feel myself changing.  I was genuinely happy in Seattle my entire time there, but I couldn't escape the draw to something else.

After about a month back in the States, I go into my boss' office for our weekly 1:1, and she casually asked how I was still adjusting back.  Now, I was about 50% sure I was moving at this point, but the "fear" of the unknown and lack of a plan was stalling the decision making process.  I wasn't ready to quit just yet, I had too many unanswered questions to just move right now.  If I move to Thailand what do I do for work?  Do I have enough money?  When do I return, or do I?  Do I want to quit this great job with a company about to go IPO, leaving stock options on the table?  I'm really happy in Seattle, I have a great network here, can I just leave this behind?  I won't be able to snowboard, can I handle that?  

But it was the answer to one question alone that made the decision the easiest one in the world for me:  Do you feel inspired anymore?  No, I don't.

Well, then it's time for a change.  

After a momentary delay, I responded to my boss' question with a 35min long regurgitation of my hopes and dreams to travel, and the fact that my inspiration now lives somewhere else.  I wanted to show this company the same respect they showed me and be as forthcoming as I could, especially as they were planning big things for the new year.  The news literally spilled out of me, even though I wasn't 100% this was what I was going to do.  My gut instinct took over, and it all happened the way it was suppose to.  A heavy weight lifted off of me like never before, I felt honest with myself and my life...finally. 

I suddenly realized the biggest part of this decision has just been made, and it's now official, I'm moving to Thailand.