Funemployment - Part II

In a prior entry, I mentioned that my wanderlust began in New Zealand. I went there in 1986 on a school trip. During that trip, we mostly stayed in hostels and motor lodges. In the common areas at the lodges, I interacted with other people traveling through NZ, and it blew my mind to think that young adults not much older than I could just up and go for several months, traveling wherever their whims took them. My conversations with the young travelers in NZ awakened in me a longing to explore the big world out there.

While on that school trip, I purchased Simple Minds' Empires and Dance (among other albums not easily available in Singapore), and at the hostels I discovered cassette tapes by bands that got zero airtime in Singapore, including The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, etc. Apart from being in a new physical environment, realizing that there was exciting music out there made me want to explore the world more. Empires and Dance - with its themes of travel, cities, transport, finding oneself in unfamiliar environments, alienation, etc. - became my soundtrack for New Zealand and eventually for my life as I moved from country to country and explored more and more of the world.

While I was serving my military service and later on in university, I took baby steps by traveling to Malaysia and Indonesia. Most of the early trips were with friends, but I eventually began to take solo trips. I learned how to read and navigate new environments, and slowly but surely my streetsmarts and my confidence grew despite sticking out like a sore thumb everywhere I went.

After university, I took a headlong plunge into a whole new world when I accepted a job that would send me on expatriate postings. After a few years - with assignments to Bangkok and Manchester - I left that job and settled in Los Angeles and then Honolulu. My world has become so much larger and so much more interesting and colorful since that fateful school trip to NZ. So, it is appropriate that I end my Midlife Crisis Flashpacking Trip in the place where it all began.

Before I set off in July, I contemplated switching careers to pursue something I really loved, but it would involve going back to school, and it would also require me to start at the bottom of a new career ladder. I decided this wasn't something I was willing to do. So, I decided to stick with my current path.

I didn't leave my last job under positive circumstances. Two days after my return, I went for spin class and I realized something was different - I was working out because I wanted to work out, and not because I needed to channel my negative energy somewhere. When I went for sushi with my former boss (not from my last workplace but a prior one), he said that it took him over a year to let go of what had happened to him in that workplace, and that having to work immediately after being laid off from that job did not help his mental state. So, I definitely did the right thing by removing myself from a work environment. I feel as if I have let go of what happened to me, and I am ready to move on.

One of the reasons why I extended the Midlife Crisis Flashpacking Trip was because I developed a strong job lead while I was home in October. I've had a few discussions with various people in that organization, and I am cautiously optimistic a job will come out of that.

So, with this, I end one of the most amazing, life changing experiences I have ever embarked on. This quote from travel writer Bill Bryson that succinctly sums up how I view travel.

"But that's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don't want to know what people are talking about. I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses."

Amen to that.

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