In the duration of my travels, shitty things have occurred – my laptop was stolen, my online job didn’t work out very well, and I’m constantly dealing with the emotional stress of saying goodbye to people. I knew from the start that traveling long-term is not all fun and rainbows but you’ll never really know until you’re in that situation and left with no choice but to deal with it.
What else can you do? Run away? Newsflash: you are already away! Ignore it? You can try but it won’t go away and the longer you put it off, the deeper the shit you’d be in. So your best bet is to just deal with it head on.
How I handled my road blocks:
First, losing my laptop was devastating because I use it for work and for blogging but when I realized it was gone, I easily dismissed any sad thoughts because it wouldn’t bring my laptop back anyway and even relieved that I have less baggage to carry.
The stressful part though was the need to change passwords in all my accounts but once I got to it, everything felt all right. I still have my iPad to work with and that’s what I’ve been using ever since. Turns out what I have now is just what I need. And besides, carrying too many gadgets would always make you worry especially during long bus rides.
Second, when my employer told me that she has to cut my salary in half due to budget constraints and my work assignments didn’t make sense anymore, I knew it was time to leave. I needed this online job to help me sustain this lifestyle but holding on to it wouldn’t do me any good either, so I quit. Finding a new one was a challenging task but I can’t give up just yet and going home is not an option.
Third, goodbyes never get easy but you’ll get used to it because you already know that people come and go when you’re living a life on the road. It’s already a given that you’ll meet heaps of people on the road and it would be hard to keep in contact with each and everyone of them so you simply have to let go. You already have 65L baggage, you don’t need more.
So you see, everything is temporary. Whatever it is you’re feeling now, know that it will pass. You just have to endure it, learn from it, and continue living life because life doesn’t wait for you to be okay. It goes on and it’s up to you if you want to be left behind or keep moving forward.