traveling the world to find my purpose

We are all on our journeys. This is my personal growth story.
All I want it to do is touch and inspire you in someway.

I Left My "Real" Job To Travel The World. Here's Why You Should, Too

finding my personal legend

I’ve worked the cubicle job, and climbed the retail ladder. I felt little contentment.

Sitting underneath the fluorescent lights, in a desk chair that I could never be comfortable in, staring at two computer screens for 8 hours a day brought me no joy. I felt my spirit slowly dying in the corporate environment and losing my luster and excitement for everyday.

I found happiness with those I worked with and small everyday enjoyments. But the job itself did not light any fire within me. It actually killed it with a tsunami of routine tasks.

Feeling like a robot in a Monday to Friday routine, and praying for the weekend to come even sooner or for more holidays to randomly appear to have days off.Is this what life is supposed to be? I saw others happy with where they were and excited to work. I felt no such excitement.

My spirit needed more. I needed to bring more to my life and myself. I wanted to see what lit my spirit on fire. What awoke the volcano deep inside me?

It takes time. It takes active listening to your body and the signs from the universe. It is finding what your personal path truly is and your true purpose.

It is also the realization that you deserve it. 

“People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them.” –Paulo Coelho

If you have not read The Alchemist, I suggest you read it immediately and over again when you need to be reminded that we all can have a life we dream of.

We spend our entire lives working towards making money to fulfill a dream. But during that work we sometimes forget what we were saving all the money for in the first place. We lose sight of that dream and it becomes a faint memory. Everyday life and responsibilities drown us.

I don’t see myself sitting in a cubicle at this point in my life. That is not my true purpose.

“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream” –Paulo Coelho

I have been writing for some time but I never thought I was good enough to be a writer or to even showcase my writing. Words have always flowed out of me effortlessly. I wanted to portray my thoughts and feelings through my words, by having my heart described in sentences and stories for others to feel.

It took me being at yoga training in Costa Rica last year and hours of meditation and yoga to realize what I was capable of. With all the heart opening sequences and the hours of clearing my mind, my fear came out that I had hidden deep inside. So I wrote, I wrote it all out into my sacred journal. I let the words flow from my pain on to the paper, tears fell down my face rapidly and I realized how all of my painful stories tied together. Running out of the room, my teacher followed me. She grabbed me and embraced me in the middle of the rain forest. As she held me, she whispered, “Only the trees can hear your tears” and the waterfall of tears I was holding back were released. The dam I had built to hold in the pain was destroyed and everything rushed out.

The words I wrote I decided the next week to read to my fellow yogi sisters. I felt something inside me that told me to share my story. I read it aloud and never looked up from the page fearful to see their reactions. When I finished, I gazed up at the women that I had grown to love in the three weeks we had together and they were all crying.

They let me know my strength and how powerful of a writer I was.

This was the universe letting me know I was following my path.

It led me to Costa Rica to these women to this moment where I let go of my past pain and walked effortlessly from the spring with a sense of freshness and confidence that I was heading in the right direction.

I worked in the corporate world for a few months when returning from Costa Rica. I felt lost and confused because I wasn’t following my dream any longer. I felt as if I was going in the wrong direction.

The job ended and I flew across the world to my country.

I find myself writing this as I sit in my mother’s village up in the mountains. Hearing the trees sway back and forth with the wind and the smell of dinner being prepared. The wind carried the laughter of children into the open window. The village has a sense of peace and tranquility.  

I don’t know what my personal legend is. Or what my next step is but I know the universe is conspiring to help me find it and leading me in the right direction.

Because as I am wandering around Lebanon for two months, I find out more about my culture and myself. I am learning about what brings me joy and allowing the creativity to flow out of me.

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too”. –Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist was given to me in Costa Rica by a soul sister who informed me that I would love the book. I shall pass it on to the next person I think needs to be inspired.

The book was given to me a second time before I left on my trip by a friend who was moving across the world to Norway to follow her personal legend.

I decided to bring it on this trip with me and reread it. This book will forever be in my life. Whenever I feel lost, or uncertain I will read it over again.

Because in the end, all we want is to be happy and live our purpose.

Before I left I was interviewing people that are living their dream and how they were led to their personal legend. I wanted to show that it is possible and people are doing it everyday.

I want to inspire others. I want to walk this earth and meet those that are living their personal legend. I want to see life for its true beauty and people for their true potential.

I am not completely sure what my personal legend is just yet. But I feel myself being guided in the right direction because I wake up everyday excited for what is it come. I am in the present moment with no expectations and pure happiness for the present moment.

“Life is the moment we’re living right now”. –Paulo Coelho

I feel myself floating. Floating through life effortlessly, because I am following my path and as I follow my path there is no barriers as I am carried on the wave that I am meant to ride.

“When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision” –Paulo Coelho

traveling makes you feel small in the best kind of way

When traveling you realize how small you really are. The world out there is gigantic and sometimes we forget when we are caught in our routine in our own city. We have a tendency to forget the magnitude of the world that is out there ready for us to explore.

I strolled through the busiest metropolitan streets of Beirut alone; taking in the graffiti walls, the architecture of the buildings that have been able to withstand destruction, the local shops selling the brightest colored groceries, and the sounds of an active city.

I sat outside at local coffee shops, peering at the commuters in a rush to get to their destination. What a multicultural street I had the luxury of sitting at, with so much diversity, and people speaking in Arabic, French and English fluently.  The streets were always packed with locals, tourists, students, cars, scooters and motorcycles. Beirut is always alive and vigorous.

I was lucky enough to make two separate trips up the mountains this past weekend. As we drove up the curvy narrow streets, the view as we elevated became grander and greener. Stacks of mountains with the sea at the horizon was the view I got for hours as we continued to the very top. The air became chillier and cleaner as we continued up.

From roaming the busy streets of a city I do not live in, to standing at the foot of a massive cedar forest, I realized how very small I truly felt. As my feet were planted into the ground, I inhaled the cleanest air provided by these cedar trees, I peered up at the sun shining through the canopies, I then fully understood.

I am exactly where I need to be and I am experiencing exactly what I am meant to experience. We may be small, and the world may be larger than we can comprehend but life will take us to the exact places we are meant to see.

As I placed my hand on a tree that has seen countless sunrises, sunsets, war and love; I knew I was on the right path.