I wish I could do that.
To which I always reply, Well, why cant you?
Should we travel the world, or should we focus on our career?
Joshua Earle
Conventional thinking dictates that one must come at the expense of the other.
you’re able to travel.
it’s possible for you to have a career.
But you cant have both at least not at the same time.
The response I usually get is, I wish I could, but its not that simple.
I need to work for at least two years at x company.
In theory this seems logical, but in practice its much more difficult.
The farther along you are in your career, the harder it will be to break away.
Because once our salary increases, usually our expenses increase rent, cars, and overall standard of living.
So while we may be making more money, we will also be spending much more of it.
In other words, I cant travel because my career will suffer.
This is the definition of black and white thinking.
See, the difficulty is that weve been conditioned to think of our careers in strictly linear terms.
Not just limited information about their chosen career path, but limited information about themselves.
I was having dinner with my girlfriend and my friend Claire the other night in Madrid.
Claire is a fellow auxiliar de conversacion (an English teacher) in Madrid.
But she was struggling with a change of heart.
So then what was the problem?
She was afraid to slow down.
She was afraid that she wasnt keeping pace with what her culture expected of her.
We need to give ourselves and each other permission to slow down.
But what is the rush?
Really, what is it?
We work countless hours, days, and years passively hoping were doing the right thing.
We never even think to take our foot off the gas.
We never even think to rest for a moment and reflect on why we want what we want.
Achieve this as fast as humanly possibly at all costs otherwise you will be a nobody.
We didnt hear: Live deliberately.
Go travel and explore the world and find yourself first.
Go figure out what you want and why you want it.
We teach our children how they should live ideally quite lucratively but neverwhythey should live.
The more you know yourself, the more youre likely to be better at what you do.
As for Claire, maybe she had already chosen the right career path before coming to Spain.
The only difference: now she knows why she has chosen it.
And it will likely make her a better physician because of it.
Once Spain was over, I would return to the United States and focus.
Living abroad has opened my eyes to so many different creative career paths I never even knew existed.
And I didnt need to spend $70,000 on an education to gain access to them.
My Dad (an electrician) and my girlfriend (an aerospace engineer) are perfect examples of that.
But for the rest of us, a different approach is necessary.
An approach that allows the freedom to expand, explore, and evolve first.
So far, traveling and my career have not been mutually exclusive at all.
From a limited perspective, the choice between travel and career represent two diametrically opposed paths.
But in reality they can be the same path why not take them both?
