I want out

As I sit here on a Sunday night looking at blogs from people all around the world I can't help but be drawn to the concept of change. I have been alive for 22 years and have only left my country three times. I keep dreaming up these adventures I want to go on, places I want to see, people I want to encounter and yet I haven't done any of it.

I always promised myself I wouldn't trade in my big crazy dreams for a 9-5 and a house in the suburbs and as I start to get older I begin to wonder... Is that exactly the path I'm heading down?

I don't want mediocre. I want to eat too much pasta in Rome, go ice skating in central park, study ancient relics in Egypt, help rebuilt buildings and lives in Haiti, see a live band at the The Viper Room in Hollywood, catch a fashion show in Milan, pay respect at the battlefields and museums of ww11. I want to stay up all night discussing literature with someone who completely disagrees with me, make documentaries about the lives of people who's stories are more powerful than mine, stay on couches of kind strangers who don't speak any familiar language besides kindness. I want to go somewhere where I can still get lost and I don't already know someones cousin the first time I meet them.

You only get this one life, 100 years if your lucky, and we're young, so why does society make us think we want to buy a little piece of land so we can build ourselves a comfortable little box where we can close our eyes or switch the TV station any time we see something that makes us uncomfortable.

What if you didn't play by the rules? What if you dared to pursue what you really want, not what your parents want, or your partner wants, or the bills require you to do, but what you really wanted when you were still young enough to believe anything was possible.

Live that life. The rest can wait.

And the truth is, that if you go and follow your heart you will come back with so much more to offer to the people you left behind.