I Left My Six-Figure Job to Travel
Rome, Italy
But It Wasn’t an Overnight Decision
Yup, you read that right. After 7 years of working in the corporate world, I decided I couldn’t ignore the feeling in my gut that I needed to make a change and prioritize seeing and experiencing more of the world—something I’d known since my teenage years, but denied for 10.
Although I ultimately did take the leap, this decision was years and years in the making, especially for a type-A planner (and scaredy-cat!).
So, what happened in those 10 years?
The Wanderlust Call
The allure of the unknown and the feeling of wanderlust calls to me in ways that nothing else ever has. From the day I saw my first temple in Thailand (age 16), I knew I would never grow old of being exposed to new things.
What I love most about each new input is that it opens up your world to a multitude of possibilities—some small, some insightful, and some even life-altering. Alternatively, when we say ‘no’ or turn something down, we are consciously making the decision to stay stagnant, cutting ourselves off from those possibilities.
It is now clear that I quickly fell into the American ‘ought-to’ culture — where I made life decisions based off what I thought I was supposed to do, but rarely along the way did I check in with myself and wonder, is this actually me? Do I want this or was I taught to want this?
Paul Miller reminds us, “with so many options it can be tempting to pick a path that offers certainty rather than doing the harder work of figuring out what we really want,” (Pathless Path, 35).
He’s right. There were clues that I wish I paid more attention to — an obsession with travel podcasts, love for anthropology and sociology, and saving every extra dollar for trips. So many of my role-models were living a drastically different life than my own, yet I was telling myself - but you’ve made it! Everyone tells you so.
Yet I stayed on the safe path. It wasn’t until I looked around and realized my world was not truly reflective of me that it all started to tumble.The argument lasted nearly thirty minutes.
The American ‘Ought to’ Culture
Growing up in the United States, we are taught if we go to a great school, study hard, get a good job at a well-known company, work 40 years, we will live a good and happy life. But isn’t this idea subjective? Don’t we each have our own desires, motivations, joys, therefore our happy path may look different than our neighbors?
I fear that as young people we have the evidence and clues to our unique path, but don’t fully know how to translate them into actionable steps. Perhaps then we fall into a more conventional path because it feels secure and safe. Maybe there should be a higher investment in coaching and guiding young adults on how to better understand themselves early on, avoiding discontent down the line.
In a world where it’s easy to feel a sense of guilt or obligation to be something pre-defined or socially ‘successful’, finding the life waiting for us can feel like an upward battle.
This is how, within a blink of an eye, I was 26 and feeling restless.
According to the societal script for a happy life, I was doing well — had gotten a well-paying job after college at a well-respected company, been promoted, moved to a hip new city, rented a nice home, adopted a cat, and could afford to go out on the weekends and travel a few times a year. All should have been great, content. But somewhere deep I knew something was off and every so often it’d hit me.
I remember thinking to myself, “Is this it?”.
I always knew I wanted to spend extended time living abroad. The five months I spent in Spain during my college semester abroad was a taste, but I needed more time, and the annual 3 week vacations were never going to scratch the itch.
Unfortunately, a global pandemic, confusing romantic relationship, and some hard years of rejection, created feelings of defeat and loss for how I could make things better. Eventually I had enough. Something was off, and I decided to take a whole year to figure it out.
Mind Shift
A mentor, a book, and a podcast - my three friends who changed my perspective forever. It took a whole year of deep, internal reflection, exceptional mentorship, and therapy for me to realize the life I once wanted had shifted and fear was the only thing stopping me from going after the new one.
I started to wonder — what would living courageously and dreaming dangerously look like? What if I could give myself the gift of time? Where would that lead me? What would I learn and take with me even after I return?
Carving a new path was what I desired, but my fear of what could go wrong stopped me in my tracks, and again, according to that ‘ought-to’ culture, I was thriving, so why alter my course?
A life-changing mentor reminded me that of course there is a risk to doing something radical, but she also said, “What are you risking by not taking action?”. That hit home. I would be letting my 16 year old self down. I would be letting my 22 year-old self down. I would be letting my current self down if I didn’t take the leap.
By saying yes, you ignite a list of possibilities that lead you to paths you didn’t even know existed. How powerful is that? She taught me that with any risk, we can outline the worst-case scenarios and build plans to manage them. Once I wrote down these scenarios, I was able to tangibly build a mitigation plan (project manager skills coming in handy) and all of a sudden, the fear of those situations actually happening didn’t seem so terrifying because there was a plan should they come to fruition.
And those were the worst-case scenarios. What about the best case scenarios? What could that look like? What might come if we embrace discomfort?
Let’s live in both worlds where we have plans for the worst, but we also allow ourselves to be excited about what saying ‘yes’ could bring. As a planner, who feels comfortable in stability, this was my happy medium.During my time in Laos, I saw and heard far too many visitors expecting the same level of service and efficiency they’re used to back home.
Dreams and Fears — they go hand in hand
"If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough,” as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Muhammad Ali both argued.
My dream of taking a gap year as an adult to travel the world terrified me. Hard to say what the scariest part of it was - it could have been quitting my secure, stable job that I could have done in my sleep with a manager I loved. It could have been that I would be traveling alone and scared that I would get lonely. Or maybe the fear of returning and not being able to get a job.
I had more fears that I won’t drown out here, but for each fear I spent hours challenging them. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that trusting myself and knowing what I can accomplish is my biggest strength. And should that worst-case scenario happen, I will figure it out.
There will be set-backs, but at least I will know I was brave enough to take the risk. I will not have let my 16-year-old self down who looked into the eye of an elephant for the first time and saw true wisdom, or my 22-year-old self who made a wish in Hoi An, Vietnam that my life would be full of incredible experiences. I’d be proving to my mom that I heard her when she said life is about experiences not things, or my dad who said to not live with regret.
Fortunately, I am not alone. Hundreds of thousands of others with a burning desire to challenge the conventional path have already started their journeys. None will look like mine, but they serve as motivators and inspirations.
I am so proud of myself for no longer ignoring the gnawing gut feeling that I was letting myself down. Barriers are only things to overcome, that test our grit, resilience, and determination. I will not look back at life 10 years from now and still have the wonder of ‘what if’. I will know ‘what if’ and have this blog as an archive.
For anyone that has any questions around how I prepared for this year of exploration, I’ll be crafting another article diving into the finances and safeguards I took before taking the leap.
