30:
Au Naturale
Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. – The Bible
I never thought I would ever quote the bible. But that’s where my journey has taken me. I’m not the same person I was before I left. Left where? Left for the walk? Left for Asia? Left a codependent relationship? Go backwards. Backwards. Back. Back to basics.
When I made the decision to walk, I wanted to apply the lessons I learned from the monastery retreat into my journey. Things like impermanence. Mindfulness. Walking meditation. Karma. Letting go. This is what I called my Road to Zen.
Palawan – The Last Frontier
Walking Palawan is in and of itself one of the best places to go “back to basics”. With the slogan “the last frontier”, Palawan is known for being the most natural, well-preserved island of the Philippines. Locals live simple lives and are content without electricity. The island also has a low crime rate and is the only island in the Philippines that has not experienced major natural disasters. One of my local friends even believes that it will be the “last frontier” when 2012 comes and Palawan will be the spot for both locals and foreigners to gather and go “back to basics” while a spiritual shift in consciousness happens.
The Last Frontier is not immune to commercialism and colonialism, however. Miners in the south have disenfranchised local tribes, forcing them to lose their means of work and relocate to the mountains. Although the island does not have a McDonalds or Starbucks, that will soon change because they are currently building a McDonalds as well as their first major mall. Palawan’s capital city, Puerto Princesa, “the city in a forest”, is misleading because it’s surrounded by forest, but not really in a forest. Typical city life with more buildings than trees is what you’ll see and what the current trend looks like it is becoming. I walked the island of Palawan at the right time, before it’s growth in tourism has spoiled the local landscape.
A private beach in Palawan
Back to Basics
There are a lot of things I did along the walk that got me back to basics. Everything from showering in the nude in the great outdoors (fortunately, or unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of that!), to wiping my ass with my own hand. Even the simple act of living out of my backpack, without even a tent and no certainty as to where to rest my head for the night was living back to basics. Using out houses with no flushing seats or toilet covers and only soap and water was back to basics.
Excerpt from 9/28/10 journal entry
Emotionally, it is difficult to take in the day-to-day challenges and the uncertainty of not knowing where we’ll have a place to stay. So far, we’ve been fortunate to meet nice families but you never know with the unpredictability. Each ditch or spot of grass looks like an appealing place to rest my head. If we could only stop to rest… Bust still we walk on.
You start to feel crazy. I mean mentally insane. You wonder why you’re doing what you’re doing. For “spiritual purposes”. Testing your faith on the road, which is so physically, emotionally, and yes, spiritually draining. The road tests your patience, your intentions, and your good (or bad) karma. But you start to wonder if there’s really a point to all this or you’re just a crazy nomad on a Jesus trip.
[...] Each day has a new lesson and each step makes me feel more connected to this Earth, and this place, than any metal vehicle entrapting my body could ever do… That’s why I walk.
The act of walking is back to basics. And I did 85% of it the local way, in flip-flops. No fancy shoes or hiking boots. Just slippers.
Pain is only weakness leaving the body.
In true minimalist fashion, I lived like the locals. Hand washing clothes and bathing in the river. Embracing simplicity and the hardships of the simple life.
18:
The year is almost drawing to a close and it’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly one year since I flew to Asia. Exactly a year ago today I got fired from a mind numbing desk job that left me feeling meaningless, uninspired and full of a good dose of Existential Angst. When they told me I got the boot I smiled and started laughing, resisting the urge to give them the middle finger. I was planning to quit in December anyway, to have just one or two more paychecks before I left for my booked flights. I guess they got to me first, but I packed my dwindling empty room where I sold all my furniture and took the 6 hour road trip through the mountains and back to my parents house. Back to my childhood room still in tact.
Weeks later, my car broke down and I was grateful that it had enough juice to bring me back home without any trouble. It’s almost serendipitous that way. As if I have my own spirit guides watching over me. Or maybe I’m just romantic and like to think with my head in the clouds. That there could be such a thing as invisible benevolent forces making sure I’m safe. Who knows. I don’t know what I believe but it sure seems nice.
This year, thus far, has been no short of amazing. I’ve cuddled with gay boys, taught Indian slum kids English, joined a four month Buddhist monastery retreat for free, temple hopped in Taiwan for free, connected with amazing people, and walked 400+ miles of Palawan island in the Philippines.
I didn’t win the Your Big Year fundraising contest which means I didn’t get to go to UK for Global Entrepreneurship Week and compete for a round the world trip, but who needs it? Something better came my way in the form of community and I now find myself staying at a raw foods vegan retreat center in Palawan with interests in holistic health and wellness, meditation, yoga and eco-consciousness. I’m staying here for free and working on various freelance projects in the hopes to start my burgeoning freelance graphic/web design career anew. I’m loving the niche I’m in and am involved in a transition town movement, which aims to transition towns into going green in response to peak oil and global warming. I’m learning all about intentional community, ecovillages, cod “mud-sculpting” houses, and permaculture.
I’ve always had a heart for Mother Nature and eco-consciousness but this is the first time I’ve actually lived in the heart of a green lifestyle. I’m living with likeminded people. People much more “into it” than me, and for much longer. I’m taking baths with buckets and pumping water out of wells. I’m handwashing clothes with green soap and bathing with green products. I’m even wiping my ass with my hands since toilet paper isn’t allowed for “environmental reasons”. And the weird thing is, I don’t mind. I’ve toughened up. I’m not just a sissy foreigner anymore. I get “local price” on the tricycles because I speak the language enough to communicate on a basic level. I’m a part of this country, and this culture. And this country and culture are a part of me.
I may not have won Your Big Year, but I have my own big year right here. Right now. And as much as I’ve enjoyed traveling through my country and slowly experiencing what it has to offer, I feel like it’s time to settle down. Even for just a bit. And start focusing on work again. Building my career. Networking in this beautiful, green city, and starting to draw some money in again. Replenish my funds, then travel some more.
05:
For 27 days, with some days of rest throughout the journey, I walked and walked a total of 400+ miles from the southernmost tip of Palawan island, Philippines to El Nido, a popular tourist destination. I did this with my local native friend whom I thought of as my spiritual guide. Many insights captured me along the way, and I am left feeling overwhelmed and unable to write the true essence of the journey on blog form. I have enough thoughts and materials to write a book… Maybe I will someday. For now, I will attempt to assimilate all of my near-daily journal entries and share what I feel is best. But what this is are journal entries. They’re raw. They’re ugly. They’re beautiful. Simple. After over a month hiatus from the internet, I have forgotten how to blog. I’m sure I’ll get back into it sooner or later but please bear with me.
September 25, 2010
Walked 30 minutes to get to a beach. Southern most tip of Palawan. The ride down was bumpy as hell. Half paved roads poorly built and under construction. Lots of gravel. Lots of roads with so many pot holes I couldn’t even tell it wasn’t gravel. The driver drove through it in such a fashion that he would surely fail a driver safety test. Speeding through gravel. We hit a flat tire which wasn’t surprising. It only set as back 10 minutes at the most.
September 26, 2010
First day of walk. Up at 4am and walking by 5am. I thought I would get to watch the sunrise over the beach and then take a nice leisurely bath in the ocean as I awkwardly attempt to switch on my bikini and then change my clothes. I am wearing my clothes from yesterday and my pants are soiled and have a slight smell of urine. Being a hygienic hobo is hard… Especially without toilet paper. I try to “rough it” with my hands and then use sanitizer but it still soils my panties which in turn soil my pants.
Next time, I should wear a napkin to act as my toilet paper.. or at least a shield from my underwear and pants. Need to get this more together. I now have a new respect for the homeless which society so looks down upon like mere scum. It’s not that they’re dirty, even though they probably are. But you try living without your basic needs and see how long you can keep clean. There is this sort of breaking point where it gets harder and harder to keep up and ultimately you let go. You cease to care that you stink or you’re dirty and let society think of you like scum. These people typically don’t have a choice. But they do the best they can. They are the true minimalists of the modern world, even though minimalism has become a sort of yuppie trend.
It’s hard not to feel like a hobo huppie (hippie/yuppie) on my walk. I’m lugging my Adidas backpack (borrowed), Nike running shoes, Nikon D40 SLR camera around my neck, Ray Ban sunglasses on my face, and a ukay-ukay (thriftstore) sweater tied around my neck like those stereotypical, white yuppies wear, particularly the ones playing golf. Every scratch upon my skin brings dirt and grime under my fingernails and the heat of the sun is turning my skin a darker brown. I can’t tell if it’s dirt or a tan or both.
24:
All my life, I have won contests. I guess I’ve always been sort of drawn towards the challenge. I’ve won at least three coloring contests in my day, and was legitimately upset when I became of the age when I was too old to enter them. For as much times as I’ve won, I’ve also lost. It’s part of the territory and you learn not to take it personally.
But I learned how to be smart. I learned how to impress the judges and I learned what they were looking for. Creativity. Of course. It always comes down to creativity.
When you’re given an Easter theme and a bunny in a basket, don’t color the basket brown or the bunny grey. Use your imagination! Don’t color the Easter eggs in solid colors, make polka dots and stripes like real Easter eggs should be. Choose color combinations that are pleasing to the eyes. My intuitive sense of color theory was instilled naturally at a young age.
This is the secret to how to “beat” the judges: give them what they want to see.
It’s the secret to how to “beat” school education and life in general. You’ve got to learn to be a bit of a chameleon, adopting to your surroundings. Seeing what fits each group or situation best.
In my life, I have won sweepstakes, coloring contests, guess the jelly bean jar, blog giveaways and raffles. Through coloring contests I have won a walkman (which gives you a sense of the decade, and consequentially, my age), spending cash, a box of 64 Crayola crayons, and gift certificates. Through a blog giveaway, I won a Hello Kitty vibrator and was literally a wishbone away from winning an HP laptop computer (a 50/50 chance). Through a work raffle, before they kicked me out the door, I won an XBox 360 door prize which I promptly sold away, along with most my other possessions, in order to start the next phase of my life and uproot it into Asia.
And now, through an amazing opportunity to travel the world dealing with issues like social responsibility, conservation and global community, I have the chance to win a round the world trip and go to UK.
A representative from the contest personally emailed me to say that I was already in the top 6 fundraisers. If I can keep within the top 6 until October 10th, I am going to UK. She emailed me to wish me good luck and hoped that she could meet me if I get there.
I can’t help but feel this contest was meant for me, and that this is one that I’ll win. If not the round the world trip, at least UK for semifinals where I would attend Global Entrepreneurship Week conferences and compete in challenges for a one in twelve chance to win the grand prize.
If they want creativity, I’ll show them creativity if I can get to UK. I’ll impress the judges and give them what they’re looking for because I know it’s what I’m looking for too.
I am completely aligned to the spirit of the contest. Social entrepreneurship. I am working on building up my courage and my networks in hopes to launch my own graphic/web design studio or freelance business. Words like studio and business really intimidate me. And I find myself glossing over them and pausing in my step whenever I say it to people. But I talk with a passion and I feel it in my bones that I will be successful. Somehow. Someway. I will make this work.
Call it what you will, I want to be my own boss. I want to target creative entrepreneurs, small business and non-profits in hopes to use my skills for something more positive than working for the corporation. I want to help people start projects, promote their messages, and be involved in the exchange of ideas, in the hopes that my involvement could play a small part in world changing.
I want to do amazing things and I want to help people. I won’t accept mediocrity or status-quo. I don’t want to do things the “normal” way, with house, husband, dog and career.
Winning the contest could help me network, build my web, as well as fuel my ideas for ways that I can make a difference. My business would be a small start in the right direction, but I know that I want to continue doing more. I believe art can change the world. I believe my art can change the world and I believe that’s my calling, my purpose, somehow. I just don’t yet know how.
Winning this contest is a step in this process.
If you’d like to help, believe in me, or just want to help me adventure on as I blog and travel the world, consider donating $5 with the widget on the right.
23:
Back in TMI spirit (LiLu from Liv It Luv It’s creation), I have a special vlog for you on how to handwash your clothes. I hope you enjoy my awkward dorkiness.
My commentary:
00:21 – How do you like my music choice? Isn’t it the best? I wanted it to be kind of like foreplay.. and when the horns come… so…horny! Hahahaha miso horny!
1:05 – I’m so Asian!
3:08 – I don’t know why I said counter-clockwise, specifically. It actually doesn’t matter as long as its circular, or even up and down. 
21:
With the close of my four month monastery stay at Buddhist temples in the Philippines, I got the opportunity to go to Taiwan where the main monastery of the organization was hosting an International Youth Conference for Life Education. The Manila temple organized the trip and came up with twenty one people from the Philippines, myself included, to attend the conference as one big group. Five other students from our retreat, the “Humanistic Academy of Life and Arts” first batch, also attended.
That sounds fancy, but it was just a series of day long conferences spanning about three days with students from all over the world in attendance. About 1,000 people made the monastery come to life. Many from ivy league schools. Myself having only gone to “art school” (the Art Institute of Portland), and having graduated five years ago, felt a little out of place. That soon vanished with the first conference and the day-to-day living mirroring the lifestyle and education of the four month retreat. Can we say been there done that? Each conference felt like a repetition, but one that I appreciated nonetheless.
The first time I heard that familiar American accent I cringed. Almost six months in the Philippines without contact with other Americans and the accent had become jarring to my ears. Like, really? We all talk like airheads like, all the time? This is the accent my peers would mock me with even though I don’t even talk like that. I consciously try not to use “like” in a sentence, ever since highschool.
The trip was entirely organized and after our conferences, we were taken around Taiwan. We visited museums and Danshui Old Street near Taipei. The cute cobblestoned streets were strangely bereft of much traffic or people.
Old street is known for its ceramic arts and a music shop for the traditional Chinese flute-like instrument, called the ocarina, was selling handmade instruments in its original form or various cute animal forms.
Temple hopping in Taiwan kept us well fed. Glorious vegan food at its finest. If you’re ever at a bind for a place to stay in a foreign country, go to a temple. They will usually house and feed you, and if you’re too shy to ask or take advantage of something “free”, you can always volunteer to clean or help out in any way. Bartering is legit.
One night, we walked out to view the temple lights and it reminded me of that bonding time you have during campfires. Only instead of a fire, we had sparklers.
And I even got to see interesting things around the city.
A 100 year old train.
A creepy ad.
14:
Love comes to you in many ways. I knew that it had to come from me first, and after a self-depreciating rut with a relationship going nowhere, I knew I had to cultivate it from within.
The end of a love relationship is always a difficult process, even when you’re the one who initiates the break. It took me five years to figure out this house, this furniture, this stuff, this job and this traditional man was not for me. Slowly suffocating my being, I cried every night. Not just for him, and this life we had built that I was leaving. But for me, and for the woman I was about to become. Who was I, really? Where would this new chapter take me? Amidst my broken self-confidence, crying stupor and blurred vision came a soft clarity that I didn’t expect. A whispered thought that seemed to come from outside of myself. An intuition.
Go to the Philippines, it said, gently.
Throughout the year, the whisper grew stronger until it became a chant, and then a loud cheer. All I could do was follow.
Growing up, I’ve been teased for being different. Bullied for being not-white, and for having a funny accent. I tortured my own demons with a shattered self confidence and grew up hating being Asian. I called myself an Atheist because how could I ever believe in God if I couldn’t even believe in myself?
Seeing differences and comparing myself to others did nothing to nurture self-love or confidence. Love and hate are always tightroping a fine line; intertwining and dancing together up on the live wire, waiting to see which one falls first. Hate no longer served me. It was time to find Love. To celebrate similarities in humanity, in the global world, and in my own motherland. It was time to get back to my roots. Soar my self-confidence until it had wings and find God from within. For the first time, I understood the meaning of “God is Love”.
God met me when I was ready to love myself.
They say love comes when you least expect it. When I started a blog, found a community to ease my break-up, and a special blogger who would teach me more about myself and my spiritual journey than anyone ever has in my life, was a big impetus for my travels, and is the only person I have ever been able to flirt so naturally with, will that become love?
When I found an old flame the day after I broke up with the love of my life and we connected over superficial things (like graphic design degrees and martial arts) and the important things too (like lifestyles, values, and spirituality), met in person and connected over chemistry, and found our lives paralleling in year-plus long solo adventures in Asia with the hopes to meet again soon, will that become love?
When I entered the monastery, shaved my head because I wasn’t trying to impress anybody and love was the least thing on my mind, found myself connecting with a newfound friend whom I strangely felt would be important in my life, will that become love?
Maybe it is all Love. Now. A bundle of joy kept for no one in particular but everyone that I encounter; celebrating similarities as my love for self becomes stronger by each life-affirming experience.
Sometimes, I want someone to share my life with, because I have so much life to give, and giving and sharing are loving qualities. But romantic love seems so small. Unstable. Like grains of sand, the tighter you hold on to it, the easier it falls through your grasp. It’s not about finding love. It’s about being love and choosing your best life, your friends, and maybe even your life partner.
I don’t know why my intuition told me to come to the Philippines, but I know it has something to do with love, learning and being. Because life is a love story if you let it be.
12:
It was prayer that lead me to a Zen monastery. I had just come back home to my motherland, the Philippines, for the first time in six years. No return ticket. No plans. And the resolve to stay here for at least one year, for as long as my balikbayan visa would have me.
A few contacts later, I was connected to a call center company and was practically handed a recruitment job on my lap. $2,000 per commission. With no sales background, the guy was willing to train me from scratch. But something seemed fishy. The way I was handed the job without interview or resume. The way he flirted with me. The way I couldn’t really see myself being a salesperson without going crazy. Wasn’t this the lifestyle I had escaped just a few months before? Wasn’t this the corporate humdrum that I so desperately wanted to get out of?
It was a tough decision nevertheless, having nothing else to choose from. The money was hard to refuse. Part of me wanted to go for it! Stretch my comfort zones. And another part of me thought I should be true to my heart. And so, I prayed. I prayed to God to ask me what I should do. Please God, If you’re out there, let me know if I should really say “no”. If there’s something better for me, I’ll take it.
The next day, I found the monastery retreat in the most random way. Four months at a Zen monastery practicing meditation and learning Mandarin, for free. My heart skipped a beat. This was on my bucket list that I had made before flying to Asia. How could I not take this? I guess my prayers were answered.
Joining the monastery was the closest thing to pray I have ever felt. 6:30am. Chanting meditation. A melodious prayer of Chinese Heart sutra; a mix of tonal Mandarin chants captivating my ears:
“Form is Emptiness. Emptiness is Form.”
Buddhism is so much more than the Atheistic religion I once thought it to be. God is still relevant, no matter how irrelevant God was in the Buddha’s teachings. Practitioners still pray. Still rely on Guan-Yin Boddhisattva for support. And still chant with their mala prayer beads.
Omituofo.
Rubbing each bead, 108 times round and round again.
Omituofo… Omitoufo…
I wanted to find God at the monastery. I wanted to have this divine epiphany about my life that would make me feel at ease, and everything seem so much easier. I wanted something easy. Packaged Enlightenment for just one spoonful a day. That’s not how you find God though. Like love, God shows up when you least expect it.
Instead, I found myself. Sweeping and mopping floors and understanding for the first time what “cleanliness is next to Godliness” meant. Meditating each night for thirty minutes. Lost in my thoughts and observing my inner world. Some nights, I would end up feeling physically and mentally exhausted. Purging bad dreams and bad memories like I was on some spiritual detox. Some nights, it was easier and thirty minutes flew by as if it had only been ten; my sense of time and space altered in meditative trance. Always, I would sweat and radiate heat like my body was a ball of fire. Like I was this source of energy.
I found myself and lost myself all at the same time. The idea of self and no self prevalent in Zen.
I’ve heard it said before that prayer is a conversation with God, and meditation is listening to him. Maybe that’s true. I don’t know. All I know is that the four months at a Zen monastery were some of the best life-changing experiences I ever had.
10:
“Good morning, baby.” My groggy eyes slowly opened to see a middle-aged Indian man carrying a tray of hot masala chai, waking me up in his personal sing-song Indian accent. “Time to wake up, baby.” Rubbing my eyes, I moaned a response. “Tea, baby? Very hot. You take,” he coaxed in his broken English.
Every morning, Rakesh would wake me in this same way. He was my host-dad as I spent the three weeks in India to volunteer at a slum school teaching English. And every morning, me and the other volunteers would eat delicious meals of ciapatti bread and potatoes. Justin, another volunteer, was vegetarian so our host family cooked all of us vegetarian meals. Who could complain? Authentic Indian food cooked by an Indian family is like going to paradise each time you take a bite. So simple and yet so refreshing. So heavenly divine.
That was the first time I tried a vegetarian diet and I found myself not missing meat. When Justin left, as volunteers continually come and go, Rakesh cooked us a special meal with chicken. Chicken is my favorite meat but even tasting this feast seemed anti-climatic. I didn’t miss it and I didn’t have to. I yearned for more vegetables. Peas. Cauliflower. Carrots. All made in a wonderful concoction of spices and curries. I yearned for coconuts and mangoes and local fruits and masala tea. I yearned for chocolate. I didn’t yearn for meat.
“Are you vegetarian because of your religion?” I asked Justin one day. He was a practicing Buddhist, with the diligence to meditate every morning. He wore his malas on his wrist and taught me about om mani padme om.
“No, it’s mostly out of compassion,” he said, after a thoughtful pause. I smiled. Nodded. Almost smirked. Compassion and Buddhism go hand in hand. There’s nothing the Dalai Lama stands for that doesn’t also involve compassion. Was this some sort of cheesy, canned, Buddhist joke?
Two months later, I found myself entering a Chinese Buddhist monastery retreat in Bacolod, Philippines. After declaring “I’m not Buddhist enough” I wanted a respite from my wandering mind. Anxieties about my uncertain future and wondering when love would happen and I knew I needed to find my center and balance my life again. Balance me.
“We are like family.” The old master said. “You’re welcome. Ask question. Do not fear.”
I had just arrived the monastery and was greeted with a warm bowl of soup and equally warm smiles. Biting into a bright baby carrot, I nodded back and felt my tongue burning hot and the sensation spreading down my throat. The baby carrot turned out to be a red pepper! First lesson: mindfulness.
We were taught how to eat. There’s a whole art to it, in Chinese Buddhist tradition. Back straight. Hands cupped to a “C” to hold the rice bowl “like open mouth of dragon”. Chopsticks delicately picked up in complete silence. No speaking. No food going to waste. Not even one grain of rice left on the plate. This was the start of eating meditation. Each bite with intention, mindfulness, and thoughtful consideration of the causes and conditions–the server to serve the food, the kitchen staff to cook the food, the vehicles to transport the food, the farmers to grow the food–that got our vegetarian meals to our plates.
When you eat in silence and complete concentration, something changes. The food becomes medicine. Nourishment. Nutrition. The food becomes reverent. Holy. Sacred. For the first time in my life, I understood the meaning of prayer and “giving thanks”. My skeptic shell of Atheism, already growing softer before the retreat, had completely disappeared.
But something else changed too. I couldn’t look at meat the same way. My taste for vegetables grew stronger since having left India. The “causes and conditions” of packaged meat–the helpless animals being commodified as if they were mere objects, the excess consumption-driven meat factories polluting our environment, the unnatural hormones pumped into beef, and the careless mistreatment of the food chain–became more apparent as I learned about thoughtful eating, slowly chewing each bite with intention. Meat wasn’t just meat any longer and I couldn’t ignore the process.
I finally understood how vegetarianism is a choice of compassion, and not of religion. Vegetarianism meets you when you’re ready to go to that level, just as religion (or no religion) meets you at the level you’re comfortable with, and God (or no God) meets you whether you’re a Bible thumping homophobic, or an open-minded bisexual.
In four months, I changed. I became more compassionate by the bite.
I became vegetarian.
07:
Sometimes, life feels like you’re just getting by. Like poverty is a choice, and quitting isn’t an option. I have so many “ideas”–goals–that I’m running towards in so many different directions that I feel like I’m essentially running in circles and going nowhere. I’m flailing. Waving my hands in every which way and just trying to keep afloat. To keep my wits about me, I have to remind myself that I’m too stubborn for quitting. Too tough. Too passionate.
My Bucket List
What goals have I made for myself that I’m not accomplishing? Late last year, before I took my one-way flight to India and beyond, I made a bucket list. It was a reasonable proposal to 2010 and the adventures I’d hope to have. It was a reachable extension to the rest of my life and the things I hoped to accomplish before I die. Mostly adventurous things, like hiking to Macchu Picchu and trekking the Himalayas, but some implications of love and lifelong partnership; wherein I wrote that I’d like a Buddhist wedding ceremony, not because I’m Buddhist, but because it sounded cool.
I’m already achieving my bucket list. Scratch off “stop eating meat longterm”. Check. I’m a vegetarian now. Scratch off “join a Zen Buddhist monastery and practice meditation”. Check. For four long, and yet short months. Scratch off “learn Filipino martial arts”. I already bought my ticket to Palawan, where I’ll be joining a local skillfully trained in the arts and willing to teach me as we walk the island together.
It still absolutely amazes me, and floors me to know that the bucket list is already manifesting itself, and in the most unexpected ways! These experiences I find myself having are completely unplanned but come in the form of opportunity that life has somehow offered me, and I choose to take. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s almost as if, when setting the right intentions, the Universe will answer. Sometimes, it will say no, and you don’t get what you want, but other times, and lately in my life, it will say yes. Hell Yes.
This is the closest “proof” to “God” that I’ve ever experienced, and I intend to continue experiencing it as I prepare for my spiritual island walk journey; my own road to Zen.
Hell Yes
As far as all those other far reaching goals? Become location independent with my own business? I’m working on it… Trek the Himalayas and Macchu Picchu? That could happen if I win the trip to UK, by being in the top six fundraisers for Your Big Year charities. I’m currently in 4th place, if I researched and did the math correctly. I just need to keep it up until October 10th. I’m placing that amazing “opportunity” in the hands of everyone who chooses to donate (ahem, there is a donation widget bar at right), and in the hands of me, for how well I can promote my charity drive and think up ways to gain more funds (hello Etsy!).
I want the Universe to say Hell Yes. I want the opportunity to show up and then step up to the challenge. I want to be granted this amazing stepping stone in UK, so that me, myself, and I can do my personal best to win the grand prize round the world trip which will allow me to scratch off Macchu Picchu and Himalayas on my bucket list. Hell Yes.
Can you see this passion flowing through my veins? I’m too tough to quit. Too stubborn to throw my goals out the window and fail. I’m set for going to the UK and I’m thinking in terms of already winning a spot. But beyond that, beyond this good cause and this contest for social responsibility and global citizenship, is my passion to make a positive difference. I’m flailing.
Flailing but not Failing
I don’t care about material wealth. I don’t care about success in the typical Western sense. Marrying rich, winning the lottery, or having a six-figure income was never a desire, even when I was a kid. I have no job. I will run out of funds if I can’t find a way to make more money soon. Despite all that, I’m doing shit for free. I’m designing, coding, and writing with the good intention that I’m volunteering and making a positive difference with my skills, somehow. I’m doing it with the perhaps naive, but hopeful intention that everything will work out and life magically works in your favor if you “plant good seeds” and make positive connections. I’m doing it with the realization that if I can do this shit for free then I can most definitely do this with a passion that rivals the work-drone life and love my work!
I wear my “goals” not on my sleeve, but on my forehead and try to live my day-to-day with those goals in mind; guided as if by my third eye. First: “bootstrap my career”. Then: “change the world”. I’m still trying to figure out how; romantic, idealist that I am. I’m doing it on a smaller scale, by trying to make the daily choice to go vegetarian, an all around better lifestyle for eco-consciousness. But I’m struggling to find a larger scale. To be a part of something bigger than myself. I don’t want self delusions of grandeur, or worldly acclaim. This isn’t about me. It’s about trying to make a big difference that goes beyond my human existence and lifetime. Maybe that means raising a strong, independent, daughter adopted from China, or raising my own birth-child. Maybe that means traveling the world and building my web, creating a non-profit that impacts relevant global issues. Maybe that means winning the Your Big Year contest and taking part in conservation projects, teaching in Ecuador, and working with tribal communities. Maybe it means “settling down” in one location, community building, and making a difference in the local scene. Maybe it’s a combination of all these things, or maybe none. I don’t know. Whatever it is, I will not give up. I’m too stubborn to quit, and I will let my “third eye” guide me. My inner compass, my intuition. I have a feeling, as crazy as it sounds, that I am meant to do this. I just need to figure out what specifically “this” is… Even when it feels like I’m going nowhere, but going in circles I tell myself:
I may be flailing, but I’m not failing.
Because “failure” isn’t part of my vocabulary.
