I did not identify that traveling the world by myself for an indefinite period of time was out of my comfort zone until 7:51am on Tuesday, July 26th.
After three days in Amsterdam with my Bulgarian friend, I left him at the airport to return home, and began my first days of solo travel. I feel well rested and free from real world stressors. But I also feel overwhelmed with freedom. I am struggling to balance “living in the moment” and “building a game plan for my entire future.” I had a post-graduation plan: travel the world. But what’s my post-travel plan? When is post-travel? What do I think I am going to do here? I don’t think I have been out of my comfort zone in a while. Years, maybe. It’s hard for me to admit that. Running for student political office, high stakes meetings with university administration, and building a new social network at college are the first things that come to mind when I think of my recent uncomfortable changes - but this feels different. In those experiences, I dove into the challenge, and converted my anxiety into energy and productivity. I lost major elections, meetings went south, friendships fell apart. I was learning to cope with and embrace failure, but never fully experienced the discomfort of these challenging situations. But here I am at this coffee shop, feeling overwhelmed. There is no project for me to dive into. I cannot fail and I cannot win. I am out of my comfort zone.
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