What I’ve Learned: Six Months In
Almost exactly six months ago,1 I left my winter coat behind on one of the uncomfortable grey boarding-area chairs in Newark International Airport and boarded a plane to Santiago.
Since then, I’ve been to six different countries, spending about a month in each, exactly as I planned to do. I knew it’d be good for me and I knew I’d enjoy it—how could a life of museum-hopping and landscape-oogling and new-food-trying not be pleasant?—but I underestimated just how much I’d get out of this experience. And just how much I’d want to keep continuing it.
I wrote this lookback, a follow-up to my one-month learnings, in Medellín, which may be one of my favorite places on this continent (watch out, Montevideo). I spent almost two weeks there, appeasing all the different parts of my personality. Some days were spent haunting the Metro, running around to walking tours and new exhibits; others were punctuated only by the anticipation and then satisfaction of a meal—a long table cluttered with steaming plates of bao, a bite of spicy chickpeas and soft lentils and crisp onion, a folded slice of kale-and-pecorino pizza, a burger piled high with chorizo and dripping, juicy tomatoes. (Colombia’s cheap; I can eat like a queen in Medellín, fulfilling each of my international cuisine cravings, for less than I’d pay for a deli sandwich in New York). I spent a couple nights out, dancing til my hands got too sweaty for my partner to hold, and many more evenings in, reading Colson Whitehead (Isabelle, I finally finished The Underground Railroad and we have so much to talk about), watching British comedians’ Netflix comedy specials alongside flesh-and-blood Brits and laughing just as much at the comedy as at my friends’ unbridled enjoyment of it, and perfecting the art of getting a full night’s sleep in a 7-bed dorm room full of rowdy characters, including a vomiting ghost who stayed out all night, every night, reappeared briefly each dawn to puke loudly and rhythmically in our shared bathroom, and then disappeared again until the following morning.
I set a goal to travel for six months even though I originally planned (and had saved enough money for) a year of travel because I wanted to be realistic. I’d never done long-term travel before—six months seemed like a good horizon of commitment. I didn’t want to be disappointed in myself if I ended up wanting to head back to the States in July. I wasn’t sure how accurate my budgeting projections would be. And most of all, I wanted to get comfortable with living in the moment, with asking myself “does what I’m doing today make me happy?” and then deciding the next day with that answer in mind.
And here I am, six months in, absolutely loving this existence and signing up for at least another six months of it.
Six months! I’m crossing my fingers that the absolute bare-minimum level of budgeting I’ve done ends up being serviceable and I’m buying tickets around the world. Specifically: in two weeks I leave Colombia for Buenos Aires, where I’ll spend a week and a half hanging out with Diego and exploring all the parts of that city I missed when I blew through it in five days in February. Then I hop on a flight to Auckland, New Zealand (!!), where I’ll meet up with biologist, vegetarian, and sister-friend extraordinaire Marta to backpack the North Island for 2-3 weeks (!!!). We will be doing lots and lots of hiking and butter-pasta-eating (in an attempt to not blow all our money in one of the most expensive countries in the world). Then she’ll go home to heaven-on-earth Ann Arbor and I’ll spend another two months in New Zealand, hopefully doing a few stints on organic farms and the like (again, maximizing for unique experiences while minimizing expenditure), then back to Buenos Aires—from which I might kick off a quick expedition to the north of Argentina (and Iguazu!), which I never made it to on my circuit—and then back home for the holidays. And then back out to Central America in January, to keep exploring, keep working on my Spanish, and keep writing, this time with Diego in tow.
That’s the rough plan for now. Who knows what will happen between now and then? Until then, I’ll keep enjoying every day, keeping in mind what I’ve learned over the last six months:
1) Ask for what you want.
I’m not particularly shy. I love communication. Those traits usually mean that I’m beyond comfortable asking for what I want, but I stopped doing that when I first arrived in South America. A big part of it was my embarrassment of my language skills—I didn’t want to be stuttering out a request to an impatient receptionist or server or friend and have to struggle through a process of reconciling my barely-articulated desires with the reality of what was on offer. Another part of it was wanting to be liked. I didn’t want to be the person who made a fuss; I didn’t want to play into stereotypes of Americans not being go-along-to-get-along. I certainly didn’t want other travelers to think that I was needy or a bitch. And third, I wanted to learn to be a person who could let things go. But I realized, about a month ago, that if I expect and appreciate excellence, I’m much more likely to get it if I ask—and that I care more about being who I am than I do about avoiding potential miscommunications or discomfort or being the chillest person in the room.
This isn’t to say that I’m out here being an asshole. And my first five months of holding my tongue and accepting situations I wasn’t a big fan of helped teach me really valuable lessons about being more zen. I came into this trip already hating dramatic performances of righteous indignation—the embarrassment, frustration, and allover bad mood is almost never worth the hit of satisfaction; I am a pragmatist above all else—and have become even more accepting of the path of least resistance. Sometimes it really is the best answer.
But I’m now doubly sure that I believe in asking for what you want. For a discount on bus tickets since you’re buying eight of them, for going in on laundry with the new girl in your dorm, for a towel from the front desk of your hostel, for fries instead of the baked potato, for the Colombiano to slow down his speed because your Spanish listening skills are at best a 6/10. Articulating what you want makes you all the more likely to get it.
2) Everyone can teach you something. Figure out what it is.
My thesis for what makes a meaningful relationship is that the other person makes you better. Sets an example for you in something you’re weak in, calls out things you’re struggling with, brings you new perspective, educates you on what they’re an expert in. And of course, you do the same for them. Statis isn’t enough; companionship isn’t either. This standard is harder to apply to friendships that will only last a few days or weeks, which are more often the kinds you fall into on the backpacking circuit, but just as important. And approaching them like that is actually even more important when you don’t have as much agency around who you surround yourself with. I’d rather be alone than spend time with someone who doesn’t meet my standard, but that’s not always something I can control. Over the last six months, I’ve found myself tagged to people I wouldn’t choose to spend time with in real life; maybe they’re a coworker during a Workaway stint, maybe I’ve booked a week in the same dorm room as them, maybe they’re the significant other of someone I do vibe with. I can’t always control my roster of companionship, but I’ve learned to make the most of it by figuring out what it is they can teach me. I found that one such person was a really, really good dancer with a killer hip roll that I’ve since appropriated as my own. Another was great at active listening, disconnecting from their phone and giving their conversation partner their full attention; it made me realize I was being rude in many of my conversations. One guy was a tech genius who told me about two travel apps I ended up downloading and now use all the time. A girl had a really cute habit of writing goodbye letters to people who are going on trips and now I plan to leave more notes of my own. All we are as people is an amalgamation of what we’re exposed to—I’m bearish on there being actually any fully unique ideas in the world—and I’m a big fan of trying to make the most out of what, and who, I come across, which in turns makes me more likely to be the kind of person who can enrich someone else’s life.
3) Follow the two-question rule.
I’m stealing this outright from Alie Jones, a talented writer whose articles always educate and inform me (when she’s not writing about Hilary Duff, with whom she is fairly obsessed, she’s writing about blind gossip; I love both subjects). She wrote this really great piece where she proposes a universal law for strangers meeting strangers: you get to ask two introductory questions (think “what’s your name?” or “where are you from?” or “how are you?” or “what are you doing here?”—but just two of them), and if the stranger asks you a question in response, you can continue, but if they don’t, the conversation ends after two. It’s perfect! Even if you’ve been conditioned to be likable and people-pleasing your entire life, you can hold up against two questions. Imagine the perfect two-question-rule-following conversation:
“Hi! What’s your name?” “Brittany.” “Cool, I’m Thomas. Where are you from?” “Toronto, Canada.” “Okay, cool. Have a great day!”
And if Brittany wanted to befriend Thomas, she could’ve asked him questions—his nationality, how he’s doing, et cetera—but since she didn’t, the conversation dies there. Boom. Sometimes, as extroverted and Team-New-Friends as you may be, you just don’t want to talk to people. And the two-question rule makes that possible. It’s not yet caught on the world over, but I now try to be an extra-active listener when I’m the one striking up a conversation (when I don’t note engagement, I let it drop) and force myself to not ask questions in return just for the sake of being nice if I really don’t feel like talking to somebody. It’s lovely. Ten out of ten would recommend.
4) Celebrate!
Celebrate good days. And bad days, when they’re over. And birthdays. And sunshine and finding the best gelato in town and new friends and old friends and anniversaries. Celebrate days special to those you’re newly surrounded with and celebrate days special to those you left at home. Learn the celebrations of the place you’re in, whether that’s a new country or a new town or an in-law’s family, and eat and dance and smile with the best of you.
Some of my favorite moments on this trip have been celebrating exciting moments in someone else’s life. A champagne engagement toast after a Galapagos proposal, a birthday party/pregame in a 7-bed dorm, a goodbye dinner coupled with reflections on highs and lows over the course of someone’s trip. I made everyone around our dinner table on Tash’s final night in South America hold hands and say one thing they’re grateful for, and while half the table may have hated it, we got to sit in celebratory gratitude together for ten beautiful minutes and that’s what this trip—and life—is about. Finding the good. Grabbing onto it. Lighting it up.
5) Life is short and wonderful and entirely yours.
At least twice a week, someone says something to me that goes like, “You’re living the dream! I wish I could do what you are doing!” Other travelers on shorter trips say it. Friends from home say it. Locals I meet say it. The thing I always want to (and sometimes do) reply with is: you can.
If your dream is the same as mine was—go see some of the world—it’s not hard. It’s saving money, and planning, and dealing with the logistical quagmire of putting your current life on hold. It’s getting on a plane and being open-minded to the new definitions of life and food and customer service that you’ll find when you land. And it’s asking questions and it’s not losing your passport and it’s picking up some new language skills along the way. If your goal is something else, I bet it’s also not that hard. If you’ve found something that you care about, and that you’ve set your mind to accomplishing it above all other things, and then you apply yourself and your unique set of talents to making it happen, I have little doubt you’ll end in a place that makes you happy.
It’s the deciding what that thing is that I’ve learned is the hard part for most people, and I think it’s because they struggle to set the right-size dreams.
None of us have to know today what we want our lives to look like in ten or twenty or fifty years. Even if we do, the process of getting there is going to be taking that big-picture view and breaking it up into manageable stages. And then accomplishing them, learning from the process of reaching that moment, and deciding the next set. That’s it, over and over again.
If you are not more happy than not, why is that? What would you like to change—what would bring you the most fulfillment? How are you going to go about doing that? And when are you going to start?
Because there’s only so much time we all have on this earth, and the more of it you waste doing something that doesn’t fulfill you, the harder it will be to find the energy to apply to what does make you happy. And not what you think should make you happy—be it a certain grad school or a certain job or a certain romantic relationship—but what actually does.
I’m not ignoring all of the real-life constraints on a hedonistic existence, whether they’re logistics (life costs money, and it must be considered), obligations or commitments (familial, societal, legal), or differing levels of agency (depending on who you are, where you live, and what you look like, certain things—jobs, travel, relationships, etc.—will be different levels of difficult to achieve). But I am saying that those things are navigable and shouldn’t keep you from getting after what makes you happy.
I’m thrilled to be where I am, doing what I’m doing, with the people I’m meeting along the way. Even when it’s hard—when I’m sick on the road, when I miss big events at home, when I have to bear witness to gross injustice—it is entirely worth it. One day it won’t be—one day the marginal benefit of each new day, each new country, each new conversation—will be worth less than what some other dream offers; when that happens, I’ll set new goals, a new path towards achieving them, and head out after them with new vigor. But until then, what a gift, this trip, a gift given to me in equal parts by myself, by the way I was raised (by parents, teachers, friends, family, mentors, bosses, coworkers), and by the world and its multitude of people and places and things that have given themselves to me to question and explore and make mine. Thank you.
1 Comment
Leave your reply.