Life Lessons in the land of lost souls

To put this all simply, I have been pretty generally unhappy since I've graduated from college. Until that point, I had a very concrete, achievable goal that I put all my mental power into completing. Once I reached that goal, I had a hard time finding purpose in my life.

First, I dedicated all of my focus onto my job, hoping this would lead me on to something greater. Eventually, it proved to be a bit of a dead-end job and was frankly, a bit below my abilities. I enjoyed the job, but I wasn't finding all validation for my life that I was hoping to find.

Next, I threw myself emotionally deeper into my relationship with Manda. Getting married seemed like the perfect goal. I would let love be the power to validate my life after school. After another year of this, I realized that I was not even concentrating on my own life at all, but living my life through another person.

My next big plan was to completely overhaul my life. Instead of just letting Jess and I go our own separate ways, I decided that no, dang it, I'm moving to Australia. I harvested in myself a strong anti-American sentiment. Obviously, my life was not happy because I just wasn't living in the right country. Plus, with a great girl on my side, how could I not be happy? Well, we all know how that turned out.

After that, I decided to travel. Seeing the world is great goal, plus it is a great distraction from the loneliness of a tough breakup. For a while, this worked. I was meeting new people, seeing new things, and facing new challenges everyday. Even though I was enjoying myself, it still wasn't providing the answers I needed to really give my life meaning.

Then I stumbled into the vast caldera surrounding Mt. Warning. Maybe it was the excessive amounts of time alone with my thoughts. Maybe it was the marathon conversations with the weird new age hippies. But maybe it was something more powerful, something unexplainable. Whatever the cause, I suddenly became very content with my life, including my four years of mistakes and soul searching after school.

I settled my issues with love. Really, who cares that I'm starting from scratch again at age 25 after five years of unhealthily serious relationships. I still learned things from them and had some amazing times. I'm still very young. My father didn't even meet my mom until he was 40! Plus, I never really learned to have a casual relationship anyway. I've stayed with every girl I've ever dated for at least a year and a half. As long as they made me happy in the moment, that is what really matters: relationships don't need direction.

I realized that it doesn't matter what I do for work, as long as I'm happy doing it. Honestly, I really enjoyed working at Cosi. I have enjoyed every job I've ever done. That's just the way I am. No, it didn't pay much, but I obviously made enough; this is proven by ability to even afford this trip and the excessive size of my IRA. Although, I have had quite a leg up by all the financial help I've received to pay for college. Seriously, thank you to those who've invested in my education. I won't name names; you know who you are and it is much appreciated.

I have an amazing, loving family. I love everyone to death. I also have some great friends as well. Even though I've not seen many of them for a long time, it still feels great to know that they are there for me no matter what. This is why I can never move to Australia, as much as I love it here. The US is not perfect, but I can't erase the fact that it is home.

Finally, I realized that I love traveling. Seeing this country, although not always easy, has proven to be so rewarding; I cannot even begin to put into words how many positive lessons I've learned from this trip. Since I'm young and few obligations in life, I will continue travelling off and on for the next couple of years. I'll regret it if i don't. My next plan is to work for a year, then travel to South Asia for a few months, starting in Sri Lanka, up through India and Nepal, then on to Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and if I can find the bravery, Burma, finally ending my trip with a visit to Fai in Hong Kong.

I've started writing excessively as you all can see by the pages upon pages I've posted on my blog. For some reason, I just started feeling inspired in that caldera. I made a list of small goals and things I'd like to do in my lifetime (currently I'm at only 36). Goals don't always have to be as huge as marriage, children, and the completion of college, they can be small things, such as just getting to know yourself better or a constant push for the betterment of yourself. Life is just a collection of experiences and as long as you allow yourself to learn and even just notice these experiences, that is all the "direction" and validation for life a person really needs.

My life hasn't been perfect, none are, but it has been pretty dang good. I finally realized that I wasn't unhappy for these past four years, I was just analyzing my life in the wrong way. I've learned things, even if they weren't in a classroom. I have fun everyday. It really doesn't matter that I've had two failed loves. I've been aware of the answer for a long time, but it wasn't until I was in Murwillumbah that I was able to allow my soul to accept it. In my newly found happiness, I started noticing the sky again; the simple beauty that I take for granted everyday. Sunsets have become one of my favorite things again.

A couple days after my enlightenment, I was relaying my experiences and lessons from my ten days in he caldera to Donna in Bellingen and she told me something quite fascinating. Apparently, the aboriginals hold the caldera around Mt. Warning as one of their most sacred places in all of Australia. Women are forbidden to gaze upon the mountain. They believe the caldera has the spiritual power to draw people with unbalanced souls and it has the mystical ability to help people find themselves and achieve spiritual balance. They named the area Murwillumbah, or "place of lost souls" (sadly, my further research into this has actually translated it as "camping place". I like Donna's incorrect translation better.) This is why backpackers, hippies, and artists are so attracted to Byron Bay. I mean honestly, is there any better symptom of spiritual imbalance than running away from home for an extended time? I typically don't believe in such things, but given my experiences, I admit it is a little weird.