007: Adventure Awaits for the Spontaneous
Letting the intrusive thoughts win, once again.
One Night in my Basement 🌙
Another day went by, and I was still in my basement. That is because that is where my desk is, where I spend most of my waking hours. Like most other Americans, we spend our life at a desk. It can be at home or in an office, but you’re still sitting and staring at a screen. Or you have one of those fancy stand-up desks, so that in that case you’re not sitting!
Point is, we tend to develop a routine in our lives because that creates stability. This stability gives us structure, which is ultimately associated with success when compounded with hard work. Unfortunately, sticking to a routine, which I have tried, is not for me.
So many times over the past 2-3 years, I have tried to develop a routine to introduce some structure into my life. Waking up at 6am for a month? Tried it. Planning every hour of the day? Tried it. 30 day challenges? Tried it.
Now you might be thinking, “Well, it’s because you don’t have any commitment.” You’d be right. I can’t lie, I’m not the best to sticking to things. I tend to become obsessed with one thing at a time, and it narrows my focus so much to the point that it is the only thing I think about. It’s a double-edged sword, because it has allowed me to rapidly progress in any one thing, but has also made me disregard other things that I should be prioritizing.
To tie back to that one night in my basement, I was longing for a change. I had fallen into a routine without trying to fall into a routine. The gravitational pull of the stresses of trying to find a job, working on personal projects, and worrying about the future, had forced me into spending 10+ hours a day at my desk. Yes, that many hours. And I wasn’t getting paid for any of it! A lot of days, I felt like I was even working more than I did when I was a Data Analyst at my previous job.
A couple of spins in my desk chair was all it took, to send me walking up the stairs on my way to bed, thinking about making a change. And that quickly led me to open the Momondo app on my phone. 20 minutes later, I booked a round-trip ticket to Bogota, Colombia for $282.
P.S. If you want to learn more about how to find cheap flights and plan an unforgettable trip, checkout my other post below, which talks about just that and more!
The Inspiration 💡
For years I have been talking about visiting South America. My interest in visiting SA started in 2021 during lockdown. I started bing watching a lot of Mark Wiens videos on YouTube of him traveling to Brazil and eating all of the delicious meats that they have to offer. Not only was the delicious food enough to make me start daydreaming about taking a flight there, but the long beaches filled with groups of people playing football seemed like such a fantasy.
I had been blessed to visit Europe and Morocco on many occasions over the years because majority of my family still live there. For Americans, Europe is the common destination for those traveling abroad. It is different enough to not feel like home, and not too far away to warrant a 12 hour flight.
People travel because they want to experience something different, yet so few people from the U.S. have been to South America. In fact, I have never met anyone that has told me they went there. It’s just shocking to me that it’s right under us geographically, yet so few people decide to plan their vacations there! That made me want to go even more.
I had tried to bring up the idea with friends to visit either Brazil or Colombia, as those were my two top picks for SA countries, but it usually ended in the majority of the group deciding that we can’t do it because of conflicting availability or some other reason. As the years went on, the more I realize that my friends’ schedules continued to get more and more jam-packed, as did mine. It became increasingly hard to find time to align with everyone else’s schedule, so I had to keep shutting down the dream of visiting the continent right below me.
This time however, I was not going to wait for other people to join me. I was going solo.
The Anticipation 😬
As I was going through the checkout process of getting the tickets to fly to Colombia, I started to think, “how bad of a decision is this?” Not just because I was going unemployed, but because I was going solo to a country that is historically known for their high levels of violence with drug cartels.
My favorite show of all time is Narcos, so I have seen what many others in the world have also seen. A very dangerous, not-so-nice place to visit.
But that right there in the issue. People tend to pass judgement on places that they themselves have never been to. They were just told by others just how dangerous it is, and most likely those people doing the telling have not been there either!
Those who care about you will probably tell you to not go, and that you should cancel your ticket, but that is ignorance. Making a decision while lacking the knowledge about the country. Don’t let people make decisions for you or push you into having fear of doing something that you truly want to do.
Before you go, conduct your own research, get insight from people who have visited, and get in contact with some ex-pats who have lived there for a while so you can learn from their experiences.
I’ll be making another post about my entire Colombia experience, so subscribe to not miss out on getting notified!
Till next time 🫡
I hope you have a wonderful experience. I can’t wait to hear all about your trip.