Letting Go
The preparation for this trip has been an experience. An exercise in something, many things in fact: patience, planning, growth and most of all letting go.

Letting go of people, of places, of comfort, letting go of all the things I ‘needed’ to do before I left. And putting some faith in the universe, in things working out. In love and friendship being enough to keep a connection to people half a world away.

Knowing that while I hate to leave people behind, I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t go chasing these adventures. As Chris says: If being a part of something something meaningful comes with sadness, pain, and loneliness, so be it. It may come with all of those, but it also comes with love, amazing experiences, a closeness to others that’s hard to match and a feeling of peace at doing great work.

Its been a great experience working at Greenpeace, and I think the time limit on my stay there allowed me to really throw myself into the job.. nothing held back, making as much difference as I could.
It certainly paid off – both in having done some great things while there, having got into every bit of the organisation, and having made connections with some amazing people in a short time.

But at this end of things, leaving was painful.

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Communicating love

A slight aside: I found that one of the hard bits was not having a way to express the love I felt for people, realising how deep the emotion for some of them went.. and that the normal ways to show that: a hug or a kiss on the cheek, didn’t quite cut it.
I wonder, is this just me? Do other people find this or not? How many things do we do, things we say.. that are an attempt to communicate ‘I love you’. We have expressions for love with partners/lovers, a simple passionate kiss. But for most cultures that’s off limits for anyone else. How do we show love? and do people recognise it when we try to express love?

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I have at points in this process wondered whether we’d be better off if we couldn’t travel. Being able to see the world so easily is amazing… but it also means people do move more often. Whether you personally move or not, you will end up with friends spread around the globe.

And what if you didn’t travel? How do you shift your perspective? How do you know if all you hear about other places is true? how do you find that feeling of discovery and exploration?

What if you had just 1 flight left?
In time we may end up having less travel anyway, and people returning to more fixed close communities, gathering with the people closest to them. But trying to force it? I’m not sure. I do hope that as my closest friends settle down (IF they settle down) we mostly end up in NZ, close enough to see each other often.

But this all led me to a question: What would you do if you only had one flight left?
Just one long journey? and if everybody had the same?
Who would you see? where might you return too?
Who would you try to collect back in one place… what village would you build?

Note: It’s taken me over a month to finally publish this. It was originally written on June 24th while on a flight. I’ve now been in the UK a month. I’ll update more soon.

Thank you so much for this.
I’m about to move to the UK from New Zealand, I have 1 week of work left… working what has been my dream job for Greenpeace NZ. And part of me really doesn’t want to go.

I’m excited about the trip and work in the UK is looking promising… but I don’t want to lose the community I’ve got here

Except if I stayed I’d probably be restless still.

So I’m leaving the office, with people I’d consider family… and I’ll hold on as long as I can… but eventually it will be time to go…

Change is great.. and change sucks sometimes too.

And a quote from the original post by Chris Guillebeau:

I say: hold on to the moment as long as you can. Fight for it if you have to. Get up early and stay up late. Be brave. Choose the raw emotion, even the awkwardness if necessary. If we must go on to something else, let’s at least think about what was and what could have been.

The more intense the feeling, the better. If synchronicity and the feeling of being part of something meaningful comes with sadness, loneliness, and disappointment, so be it. I just know that I don’t want the alternative—mediocrity, routine, the safe and the comfortable.

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If you haven’t checked out bwagy (or his book) you should. It should be required reading.

I’m slowly tweaking my blog, what I write and how I write it. So here’s an update about what I’m up to at the moment. I’ll keep writing these updates infrequently when theres something interesting to update.

Moving

The most major change at the moment, and the one thats occupying a lot of my attention: I’m leaving my amazing job at Greenpeace NZ and moving to the UK in June. Complete with a side trip to Penang, Malaysia.

One awesome thing (of many): I’ve been amazed how easy it was to save money.

I thought it would take ages, but when I got serious about it it was easy. I put all my money in once place… discovered I already had $2000 (who knew?). I’ve cut back expenses by staying with friends and my savings are now on track. I’ve bought plane tickets and I’ve got a bit to keep me going till I have work in the UK.

This is a good example of how just starting is often the hardest part. Once you’ve created momentum its easy.

Updates

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I cringe every time I hear someone talk about ‘SMART’ goals… Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time based.

I would  keep the SMT… but who cares if its Achievable or Realistic?

In fact I’d almost add them as measures in reverse… be unrealistic and aim for what it seems you can’t achieve.. and you might get a surprise when you find yourself achieving it

Aside: I’ve always known SMART as Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-based. But Wikipedia suggests it should have Attainable and Relevant instead. My point still stands however… who cares if its Attainable? Relevance could be useful though.

These all require similar skills, spirit and courage… but have slightly different goals.

An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome.

- from Entrepreneur on Wikipedia

I’ve just been reading the excerpt from Rework – it looks like this will be a fantastic book so I recommend you check it out. Ordering my own copy might wait till I move to the UK or until I have an e-book reader. But here’s my thoughts from the excerpt:

Meetings can be a colossal waste of time.

But we often do need to meet with people – at least to avoid distractions while working on something.

So what about micro meetings? 15mins max. Focused on just one issue.

I’m sure this has been suggested before. But has anyone tried this out?

How did it go?

It still suffers from mental switching costs: breaking out of what you’re doing and going somewhere else to meet. But it’s better than the ‘normal’ model of meetings and it’s probably easier to sell to other people you work (compared with just no meetings).

Don’t settle for being a cog in the machine.

It’s really not the job your in that matters

But what you bring to it

I know I can bring real enthusiasm and passion to life
And I know from the people around me who do bring their passion too that it makes a huge difference to those they interact with

Let go

Share yourself

and see just how much richer life can be…

I mentioned getting things moving quickly and then tweaking.

The key here is not to worry if its not perfect – not the perfect job or the perfect business idea, etc.

Just start, get moving, and keep moving towards your vision of perfect.

I don’t mean just take any old thing, don’t compromise your values or your goals – but don’t put them off waiting for everything to line up.

Serendipity might not happen. But you make it happen.