Dreams & Reality, Excuses & reasons

For my last blog post, I have decided not to summarize the great things I saw during my last week in Slovenia. I posted pictures on fb about that. However, I want to make a post about the way traveling alone impacts me, in a less obvious way, which I cannot share by posting pictures.
I decided to post this as everywhere, people keep asking me: "you travel all by yourself ???"

Yes I do, by choice, because:

Every time I travel by myself, I learn. Not only about a new country, its people, history, language, culture, nature etc, but mainly….about myself.
Of course, this has a lot to do with the fact that I travel alone, and it would be stupid of me trying to deny that sometimes this is a very lonely matter :-).
None of us like to be alone all the time, and I believe it is because it is confronting us with our thoughts and our will, and we don t want to confront ourselves with ourselves and all the issues, with ourselves or others, that we have hidden away somewhere.
However, in the end I must always conclude that those lonely moments are the ones that teach me the most, that help me grow. It is the combination of meeting strangers and coming into situations out of my comfort zone + having time to analyze my reactions to it, while walking or driving alone, that gives me new insights on who I actually am.

I have learned that having a dream, is often perceived as something negative. In the best case, you are considered "inspirational" because you have dreams. Dreams that you are actually trying to make into reality.

But many times, you are considered "unrealistic", "a dreamer"….Whereas, in my opinion, all starts with a dream before it can become reality.
Therefor, I have decided I will not give up on my dreams because some people have lost their ability to dream, let alone, pursue their dreams, or fight for them to become reality.
The path from dream to reality is not an easy one, unless you win the euro millions jackpot, and then still, you can not buy a package or a machine that makes dreams become reality.
But I am convinced that it is exactly this difficult path that gives us life and energy, and not so much the point where you reach your goal (which of course also is a great moment but more comparable to the moment that you buy that new pair of shoes, a moment of brief pleasure, that fades just as fast as it came).

I believe real joy and pleasure lies in dreaming of something and then making it come true, IF... that dream is really what you want. That is where it comes in handy to spent some time alone thinking about it, making sure and being honest to yourself about your will to actually achieve that goal. Is it really what you want, or is it what you think you want, or you should do, or what others want…?

I noticed many people tell me their dreams, but I am not convinced that is really what they want as they don t act on it. I cannot figure out what they are waiting for…
Many told me, it is due to a lack of self-esteem, they think they cannot do it, fear holds them back. Well, I learned that doing something you are afraid of, gives you self-esteem and makes your fear disappear.

In that way, it makes you stronger, not in an individualistic or egocentric way, but in a good way. You discover you can do more than you thought, you are worth more than you thought, you can make a difference to others because you are strong enough to do so, and…you want to make a difference because it makes you feel good when you do something nice for someone else. It s a completely different kind of joy then when you buy something for yourself.

The bottom line is that I have become to believe:
you can be whoever you want to be, and only you can and should decide who that is,
You decide, how happy or unhappy you go through life,
you decide, who you let in your life,
you decide, if you want to give or take,
you decide, what makes you feel good,
you decide, to live your life to the fullest or not,
you decide, if you care what people think about you or not,
you decide, what matters to you,
only you (not your employer, lover, child…only you),

And yes, sometimes things happen in life, over which you have no power/control to decide, things that make you feel sad, miserable or heartbroken. But that does not take away the fact that most of the time you do get to decide about your own life, and even when disaster hits you, you decide how you handle it….

I am a dreamer you say?
Well yes, I am a dreamer, and I am very happy about that. I will defend my right to dream anytime :-).

This trip I find the most important thing I noted for myself:
"try not to turn your excuses into a reason"
for doing, or not doing, something