Let’s Not Wait for Tragedy to Make a Change

“He was diagnosed with cancer. After a hard but successful treatment, he decided to quit his finance job and open a bakery, like he always wanted.”

“Her mom passed away. She realized life was short and decided to pursue her dream of going back to school to become a lawyer.”

“He was in a bad car accident and almost died. When he woke up, he sold all his things and moved to Barcelona to become a writer and learn Spanish.”

“She was laid off. Instead of finding work in the same industry, she realized she hated her old job and wrote a book instead.”

The Familiar Stories

We’ve all heard these stories. Maybe we even know someone who has gone through something similar: a major life event that shakes them, a brush with mortality, and BAM — a shift in how they see themselves and the world. We see these stories as inspiring, and they are. But they’re also deeply sad, because all of those people waited until they almost couldn’t create the life they wanted.

My Own “Almost” Story

I have my own almost story. The “almost” is very, very important here. Here’s how it goes:

My baby sister (she’s 22, but she’ll always be a baby to me) recently broke her leg. Now, although the surgery, healing, and physical therapy were immensely challenging, she spent the days immediately following her injury lying around in the hospital and her apartment — getting all the time in the world to rest and (for the most part) do what she wanted.

Here’s the thing: she is not a relaxer. She was a pre-med student, scored in the hundredth percentile of MCAT test-takers, and is a general academic badass. Her entire college career was spent working her ass off. Then, she breaks her leg and suddenly she’s forced to rest and rely on others.

Let me be clear: my sister hated it.

But here’s where my story gets interesting: A few weeks after she was released from the hospital, I found myself driving to a grocery store thinking that, while it really sucked that she broke her leg, I was kind of glad she was getting a much-needed break. I started daydreaming about how nice it would be to have a few days to just sit around in a hospital with my family, getting a break myself.

The Moment I Realized Something Was Off

Then I thought this: What the actual fuck?
Am I really sitting here thinking about how great it would be to break my fucking leg just to get away from my daily life? What the fuck is wrong with that picture?

Luckily, you know the way this story ends. No one gets cancer or hurt, or laid off, or breaks their leg (besides my sweet baby sister). That wasn’t the exact moment I decided to start my journey of full-time travel, but it was decidedly close. Even though it took a few more days — and another crappy event — for me to truly decide to quit my job and travel, the important part was that I realized how fucked up that moment was.

If I was daydreaming about breaking my leg to get what I saw as “relaxation,” something was seriously wrong.

Why Do We Wait?

So, why do we do this to ourselves?
Why do so many of us walk around with a nagging sensation that something’s just not right in the way we’re living, but we continue to go through the motions until we’re forced to face the fact that we’re not immortal?

Are we meant to live our lives in a box, constantly waiting for 5 PM, the weekend, or “one day”? What kind of bullshit is that?

“One Day” Is Today

“One day” is today, god damn it!

I’m by no means an expert on the idea of seizing the day and “living in the moment only” (LITMO-ing?), as my dad says. Maybe I should have spent more time thinking about what was right for me before I hit 30. But fuck that — I’m here now, and I (selfishly, perhaps) want others to be here, too.

Let’s not wait until tragedy strikes before we decide to make a change.

Let’s do it — right fucking now.