I awoke at 6:30 in Segovia to shower, pack, pay for the room, and make my way to the bus station. Yes, I said bus station. As I rode the 7:30 bus from Segovia to Avila and then on to Salamanca, I came to realize something. The past 48 hours had really embodied the dramatic shift in my way of approaching the world.
In my formative schooling and university days I was a relatively cheap person, but I was also somewhat reserved in my desire to take risks. Then, as I attained gainful employment, I was able to do more things. Because I had the money to pay for it, however, I wouldn't consider going about it in any fashion that required me to go out of my way or that would impose a challenge that couldn't be overcome by the simple application of money.
For example, I refused to ride buses. I never really had a good reason except that I rode them all throughout my childhood and had a bad experience on one coming back from DC; nothing warranting swearing them off completely. But if there was a train or plane available to get me from A to Z, I would gladly pay the upcharge to avoid being "subjected to" a bus. Similarly, the thought of backpacking/camping, staying in a hostel (even if I had my own room), or hitchhiking to get where I wanted to go in a pinch, were all unfathomable options in the past. I worked, I had cash, why not reap the benefits? That was my mentality.
So it occurred to me that this whole transient retirement program has already evoked a stark paradigm shift in my modus operandi. Or, in other words, I no longer see things the same way as my gainfully employed self, but rather accept circumstances for how they are, and, as my friend Kev says, have come to embrace the unknown and all possibilities therein. As I touched on in an earlier post, I think that's really the key to embarking on a trip like this. The more interesting thought to consider is, how will this change in thought process translate to my regular life when the traveling is inevitably done? Seriously, how far can I take this?
When I was creating my list of 150+ things to do before heading off on this trip, one of the last things I wrote was "charge everything," which was of course a note to make sure my laptop, camera, phone, etc. were all charged prior to my flight. But if you've ever had the misfortune of receiving something written by me, you'll know my handwriting is atrocious. So every time I looked at it, I read it as "change everything." And as I do more and more of these things that are totally out of my former realm of comfort, I find myself repeating that as a sort of mantra.
Change everything.
Ok, well... maybe not everything. It would be a shame to lose my rougishly handsome good looks.
In my formative schooling and university days I was a relatively cheap person, but I was also somewhat reserved in my desire to take risks. Then, as I attained gainful employment, I was able to do more things. Because I had the money to pay for it, however, I wouldn't consider going about it in any fashion that required me to go out of my way or that would impose a challenge that couldn't be overcome by the simple application of money.
For example, I refused to ride buses. I never really had a good reason except that I rode them all throughout my childhood and had a bad experience on one coming back from DC; nothing warranting swearing them off completely. But if there was a train or plane available to get me from A to Z, I would gladly pay the upcharge to avoid being "subjected to" a bus. Similarly, the thought of backpacking/camping, staying in a hostel (even if I had my own room), or hitchhiking to get where I wanted to go in a pinch, were all unfathomable options in the past. I worked, I had cash, why not reap the benefits? That was my mentality.
So it occurred to me that this whole transient retirement program has already evoked a stark paradigm shift in my modus operandi. Or, in other words, I no longer see things the same way as my gainfully employed self, but rather accept circumstances for how they are, and, as my friend Kev says, have come to embrace the unknown and all possibilities therein. As I touched on in an earlier post, I think that's really the key to embarking on a trip like this. The more interesting thought to consider is, how will this change in thought process translate to my regular life when the traveling is inevitably done? Seriously, how far can I take this?
When I was creating my list of 150+ things to do before heading off on this trip, one of the last things I wrote was "charge everything," which was of course a note to make sure my laptop, camera, phone, etc. were all charged prior to my flight. But if you've ever had the misfortune of receiving something written by me, you'll know my handwriting is atrocious. So every time I looked at it, I read it as "change everything." And as I do more and more of these things that are totally out of my former realm of comfort, I find myself repeating that as a sort of mantra.
Change everything.
Ok, well... maybe not everything. It would be a shame to lose my rougishly handsome good looks.
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