Dear Dreams, Can You Drop Me a Pin?

Lately I've found myself chopping my way through a jungle of questions, and it seems it's entangling most everyone who's ever made me jealous, as well. So I figure the pen keyboard is stronger than the sword machete, right? Let me take another hack at it.

Like everyone else, I want it all. We want adventure. We relish late night philosophizing with fascinating characters. We wake up at ungodly hours to stand in awe of spectacular views. We seek out people we love and expect to magically keep them as close as our closest moments. We feel the desire for—and the pressure of—financial stability. We struggle to convince our families and ourselves that we really will be around for the momentous events, and even some of the unimportant ones. Most of all, we want to challenge ourselves with the world.  And the world certainly provides challenges...the main ones being: how to we get 'it all,' and how get it all at the same time?

Easy Answer A: Move close to home and take some shitty job.  Shitty means unfulfilling. Maybe you make a gazillion dollars a year. But it doesn't push your boundaries. It doesn't give you that feeling of snapping a piece into the world's jigsaw. Mostly it just makes you count down until Friday. Starting every Sunday morning.

Easy Answer B: Say goodbye to everyone you love, sell everything, and explore the world. You'll meet people you care about. You'll make a new home in every place you go. But you'll be in transit, and so will each new family you find.

In both cases, you'd sacrifice something that I, at least, am unwilling to sacrifice. I want the exhilarating life that keeps a person in love with the world, but I want the people who I love to come with me.

There's something about people who travel. They remember how to be young no matter how old they are. It's not about looks, it's about their outlook. To them, life does include adventures, it is an adventure, a constant question mark. This view is beautiful, it's admirable, it's something I strive for, but I also see these people as lonely, connected by ever improving but never satisfying means like email, not-frequent-enough Skype dates, and the occasional real life visit. I have been and am one of those people, momentarily but also meaningfully connected to many...but I have to ask myself, how meaningful can all these fleeting relationships be? My inner deliberation eventually comes down to a new question: do I want to spend every family holiday with a new 'family'?

The exuberance of a traveler is not gleaned from the party life that traveling so often affords. If that were the case we could all just move to any huge party city (or establish our own) and spend all our money getting fucked up every weekend. But that's not it.  It's the awareness and proactivity one has to practice to get through life. Nearly everything is an effort. I won't say a greater effort, but it's certainly a different one. Want to venture slightly off the beaten path? You will devote all your energy to finding something you've never heard of and likely won't be able to recognize. Want to pay your bills? Want to purchase a week's worth of groceries, or simply take out your garbage?  You will bury your concentration into a translator app, fixating over one tiny detail that might just tell you what you are looking at. We take for granted how often we are on autopilot when we are comfortable. Our brains have spent our entire lives figuring out how to survive on the least amount of energy. Any minute task in a new country becomes a research project on cultural difference. Living in new culture forces your brain to synthesize all the sensory input you've trained it to abandon. When you start to exist in this heightened and often overwhelming state of perception, you start to realize that life is something you have to live and not just get through.

So if we can't just choose home and we can't just choose travel, what's our next option?

Fantasy Answer C: Find the ideal job, one that allows you to travel the world and come home when you want. 

Okay this option isn't so bad. But choosing it is difficult, and finding it on the page is even worse. If someone knows the direct route to an awesome life, please send me the directions.  For now I think most of us are confused.  How do you know if the job from hell is going to land you the best job ever? Does such a  job even exist, and in the unlikely case it does, shouldn't I be able to get their by letting my interests and talents guide me? When should you give up one goal for another? I'm starting to think that comedian Mitch Hedburg has the only real answer: "You know, I’m sick of following my dreams, man. I’m just gonna ask where they’re going and hook up with ‘em later."

The final question is, if we have pinpointed the lifestyle we want to lead, why can't we just lead that life from home? I don't think it's impossible, but it's not easy. Teaching in Korea has been described as your freshman year of post-college life. Your housing is provided, your salary is high, and there are tons of people all in the same crazy situation as you, looking for friends and fun. Living back home feels infinitely more complicated, with rent and cars and cost of living...all limiting factors on what jobs you can apply to, and which locations are feasible. Combine these restrictions with the fact that I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, and the options are simultaneously too many and too few.  I don't know what I want to do, and there are lots of reasons why I can't do so many things.  Especially back home. 

Maybe I'm lying to myself. Maybe I'm not supposed to know the answers and just can't help but turn the questions over and over in my head. But since I can't meet up with my dreams later, I guess I'll have to keep following them as my best source of guidance.