The Fear Of The Same

My greatest fear is to wake up 20 years from now and hate my life. To be so complacent and risk averse that I keep on suffering through the same boring life for decades. I call this the fear of the same. Last week in Hong Kong, I was able to reconnect with an old friend who had done the “unthinkable” by Chinese standards. She had quit her stable job and went backpacking around Asia.

For people who haven’t caught the travel bug, this may sound insane. Why would you leave your high paying job and air conditioned condo in Canada to go sleep in hostels all over Asia, only to collect bug bites and bruises? It doesn’t make sense. You put your career on pause. You’re leaving all of your friends and family behind. You’re messing up the pattern that we’re supposed to follow (go to school, get a job, buy a house, find a partner, get married, have babies). So, why would you do it?

You do it because it’s an adventure. Because it’s the unknown. Because it’s exciting. You do it because normal life is boring. You do it because you’re curious and you want to know what it would be like. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.

Over the course a couple of Hong Kong beers and some sketchy peanuts, my friend said something that stuck with me:

“I look back at the past five months and I talk to people whose lives are exactly the same. That scares me. I don’t want to go back to being like that.” 

Every day, she woke up and did something different. She learned something new. She saw something that she had never seen before. She was inspired. And she came to the stark realization that some of her friends living “normal” lives were boring. What did you do this week? I watched Breaking Bad. Fuck, well I guess that doesn’t compare to being one of the first Western tourists to backpack through Burma.

So, what does this mean? If you want to be inspired and live an interesting life, you’ve got to take risks. You don’t need to quit your job and backpack around the world. Take a dance class. Learn the guitar. Read a book. Stay up drinking wine with friends until you see the sun rise. Just do something to shake up your routine. Don’t do the same thing every day.

- Christian