If you thought that building your own path is easy, here is a hint: it is not. Every day is an on-going battle between the you that believes in yourself and the you that is filled with self-doubt, judgement, and worry. You have to be motivated (a true self-starter as we used to say in corporate speak), optimistic, and energized. You must keep working on things that no one has told you to work on and that no one is paying you for.
To make this process more interesting, let’s add the judgement of others to the mix. Over the past eight months, I have heard and, let us be honest, thought the following statements:
What are you doing with your life?
You should have a real job.
You live in a fantasy world.
Why did you leave a real job?
Where are you going with this?
You will not be successful.
What you’re doing is irresponsible.
You don’t want to work.
And my personal favorite:
At your age, you should have a real job, a family, and children.
Here is the kicker though. I’ve had a ‘real’ job with a six figure salary. I was successful by most external standards, yet I was hunched in front of a computer all day, pushing through back pain, trying to climb out of daily email avalanches, building mega-size PowerPoint decks that were barely read, sitting in inefficient meetings for hours, and crying into my pillow at night from the bitter realization that the life I wanted was passing me by. I had a real job, but it was not right for the real me. The real me had a fire inside, a burning desire to go see the world and tell stories. A yearning to do something different. A realization that what I was doing was all wrong for me.
Now I am on the other side. I have learned that, except for the financial instability, most scary things we have to deal with are not that different here. I still have fears and I still hear judgements. They have changed shades, but they are still by my side.
What hurts the most is that the painful remarks often come from the people closest to you. The rest of the world simply does not care enough about what you’re doing to react. Through this experience, I am discovering that the judgement of others is driven by their fear―that of failure, of the unknown, and of possibility that my path may lead me astray. I am slowly learning to respond to it all with love.
The ones who are going to succeed through the internal doubt and the external naysaying are the people that have enough of a fire to forge their insides into a hardcore metal rod. This metal rod will help them go on building their path, brick by brick, despite the negativity they are bound to face each day.
Am I one of these people? My journey started about eight months ago. I have not yet figured everything out, but I have a plan and I am getting things done. My fire is burning hotter than ever and I am beginning to feel a cold touch of metal in the center of my small chest.
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I’m a travel writer, photographer, and a wanderpreneur. My work appears in Lonely Planet 2016 Literary Anthology, Upward Magazine, Matador Network & others. Learn more about me here and follow my journey on Instagram @insearchofperfect.