The Beginning (Part 2 of 3) - My Purpose

Imagining my trip was a lot easier than planning it. I started to understand the actual limits of my idea. I end it up doing a reality check. For example I was wondering, how much time I’m willing to stay abroad, how am I going to support myself? Am I going to do it alone? What do I want to do? Is it truly worth it? And it was when I hit this two questions, when I decided to stop, and give a serious thought about what I was doing.

I started a "push-back" process, that’s when you have a negative or unfavorable reaction to and idea. Something like the “devil’s advocate” in the canonization process. Probably, I started doing this as way of confirming the solidity of my decision.

When I was working as a business analyst, and while studying economics, I learned to always evaluate different scenarios of any project, or estimation. To support my hypothesis with rigorous assumptions and try to figure out stress scenarios to my analysis, in order to be accurate on my suggestions, or at least be confident enough to present them to my bosses or professors. I think every economist learn how to be a strong critic, to test their own work, and their colleagues.

Doing this exercises helped me become more confident while presenting my work. It helped me to defend mine ideas against others and against myself. So I did this with this trip. I wanted to convince myself, in a more realistic way, that this journey was worth it, that all my other scenarios weren't as attractive as these one, or that this was the most beneficial thing to do for me. I wanted to convince myself.

First I needed to find my purpose on this trip is, what do I want to do while being on a long-term journey. And this is what I came up with:

1)      I want to find a better way of being me. While growing up, I've always had something to aim or reach for, there is always predetermined path that I’ve followed. In school, everyone is trying to get a degree, it's a straight forward goal for everyone. Professors, school, community, family and peers challenges you to reach your goal. There is a whole social structure that decide the right path and incentives that pushes kids and young people to a education goal.

Once you go to a job, you have a different incentives and paths. You start being economically independent, which it always feel good, you start growing yourself outside family and became more like your own individual. However, during 8 hours a day, if not more, your purpose is given by someone else. You work to reach certain goals in someone else company or project, which is not bad, but is a vested path to our lives. There are some cases, like when you're your own boss, where your work and decisions are translated as your own path. But, usually you go to a firm, look for a job, you follow a career path, and you're actions are driven by the company you work for.

My main purpose on this journey is to learn how to challenge myself, how to reach my own goals, how to live my life. I want this to be a "stress test" of what I'm able to do, how I'm able to be happy, how I can grow within my own path. At the time of thinking this, I couldn’t avoid thinking on my elementary school teacher, she used to leave the classroom and say “Behave properly, you don’t need the police to be always on top of you”. I will translate this into live properly. Traveling for 7 months is not a wild vacation, is living my life abroad, being myself under different and constantly changing situation. I will behave like me and I will be free in my own way, without peer, family or social pressure. Hopefully, at the end of the journey, I will be freer in my own way.

It make sense? Well, it's weird for me too, but I truly feel that I will be born again, not of what I will do or meet, but because I’m deciding for myself and being true to myself. “True will set you free” John 8:32. It’s just a quote.

There are people, who I deeply admire, that they found themselves in their daily life, in their routine. There are people that are self-aware of themselves and their surroundings. They understand what it takes to be happy in life. They discover it by themselves. Hopefully this trip take me closer to that group of people, and if not, at least I tried.

In a few words, I want to manage myself. I want to learn to manage my own objectives, my own resource and my own pace in order to get outcomes that I truly desire: happiness, which is not a something or someone, but a way of live life.

2)    Explore the world. The second pillar of my journey it’s to grasp and live, a little bit, of what is out there. As a Salvadorian, my can be traveled between 3-5 hours. There is no place that you can physically travel that is further than 6 hours of distance. Usually, if you're from San Salvador, you can travel around everywhere you want in less than 30-45 minutes… well at least before the SITRAMSS.

What I mean is that everything it's relatively close. The total opposite of this reality, would be the Trans-Siberian journey from Vladivostok to Moscow, where it takes 6 days on a train to travel from one part of Russia to the next one. This is not only a tourist trip, this is actual mean of transportation and communication that people uses in their lives. Imagine that you need to go to your capital and your only choice is a 6 day train trip (one way) that means, you do have to plan everything perfectly.

Trans-Siberian Map

Source: seat61.com one of the most useful website for train traveling around the world.

Like the Tran-Siberian journey, there are a lot of different and infinite roads that for me as a Salvadorian are unimaginably long. I want to explore part of them. I want to get lost in the road. This is just one part of exploring the world. This is just territorial exploration.

But let's talk about Food! Most of people I know loves food. This mean that I'm a fatty with fatty friends or food it's something everyone enjoys. Exploring the world without trying it different flavors, combinations of ingredients, table manners, etc., would be a mistake.

I want to try different food and assimilate a little bit of the history of food. Eating is a universal part of every human lives. If you know about food, you probably understand a little about the culture. For example, in Korea, there is a dish called “Army Stew”. I LOVE IT! Not just because of its taste, but because of the story behind it. South Korea, in the 1960's, was one of the poorest countries in the world, and they were fighting a war among themselves. This war was one of the many battlefield of the war between US and USSR. Anyway, this stew came up from Korean people that use US Army leftovers of ham and sausages to prepare a meal for their families and communities. That’s why the name of the dish. This story broke my heart, I could empathize what does this meal means to a society at war. I learn to value a lot more this dish.

This is the type of stories and foods I want to try around the world. By the way, Army Stew it’s quite spicy, but mixed with dok and noodles makes a really good combination.

Army Stew (Budae Jigae/ 부대찌개) 

Source: Noob Cook

3)    Meeting locals from every country I visit. There is nothing like a 1 on 1 chat with locals. You explore the country really fast. Meeting locals help you relate a lot of their reality, but at the same time, be astonished about our different customs. Meeting with locals help you put a face to the country. Finding your own ambassador of a specific country. Everyone has something to say and every story is truly interest if you dig into it properly. This is the underlying idea of “Humans of New York” but can be replicate it all over the world. Earth, it's a mix between familiarity and unknown that makes you wonder about origins, intertwine history and current state of different civilizations.

Even though, there are thousands of traveling articles, blogs (this is one of them) and books about how to travel around each county, there is nothing like talking and sharing with locals. They contextualize what you read, they demystify all those "Top 10 things to do…" They can show you that, even though you're in a paradisiac town, or nearby of the most astonish monument of the world, life has more beautiful things to offer and that joy comes from different sources.

They can show you the social and cultural wonders of a country. For example, in the Philippines, when you go for a drinks with friends, you do "tagay", which means that everybody drinks from one cup. Everyone make a circle, and they share conversation and their drink. I was in Iligan, September 2014, and I got the chance to try this with the Basketball Team of IMCC. We were pouring beer, I drink a glass of beer (a small one, not a pint) and then it get refill and goes to the next one. This was far more valuable for me than checking Intramuros, one of the most famous tourist attractions.

Intramuros, Manila

Tagay - One glass drinknig. I hate that I don't have a photo of myself drinking like this. 

Source: becomingfilipino.com

This are my three main goals on this journey. I feel that understanding this and internalizing this made me more confident about the decision. I know that if I apply for a job, I will be able to put my journey experience as part of my resume, because I'm convinced that this year will teach me a lot more of life, people and cultures than any other type of study or internship. I tested that this is far more valuable and unique than any other possibilities of what could I do with my year. I’m happy with my choice… truly and decisively happy with it.

(To be continue)

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On the next and final part I will share my final itinerary and a little more on how I'm planning to make this happening. This is not a solo effort, I needed the help of a lot of people. On my next I will also write about the Philippines, my first stop in this journey. Thanks for all the positive comments I receive on my first post and all the doubts you had about it. With the next post, more concrete thing will appear so I’ll rush myself to write about it.