Looking towards the next two months in Europe and the Future.

Fifteen days.  The perfect amount of time for rests between my two big trips this year.  With China, Tibet, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia knocked off my travel bucket list, I look forward to my next two months in Europe.  

I had some epiphanies on my trip to Asia, of which my need to work on my procrastination was identified and then ceremoniously set aside for a later time (my lack of movement on my Asia blog posts is evidence of that).  One of the more important epiphanies is my sense of optimism and how it has changed over the last decade.

When we were young, we spent an overwhelming amount of time thinking about what we'll do when we get older.  When I was five, I wanted to be a singer.  When I was thirteen, I wanted to be a medical examiner (I had a weird obsession with the show Quincy M.E. before CSI became uber popular).  When I was eighteen, I was overwhelmed with the choices of what I wanted to be and do when I became an income earning adult.  This focus on the future filled me with hope, optimism and happiness - more than my 140lb body could contain.  

I'm not sure at what point which I stopped looking forward and started looking back.  I guess, I can't pinpoint a time, but perhaps a period in which this happened.  When I was 22, I wanted to be eighteen and have university to start all over again.  When I was 25, I wished I was ten years old and had no bills to pay, no responsibilities to attend to.  When I turned 28, I wished I was seven again, with my family all happy and together.  Needless to say, the latter thought was pivotal in my decision to quit and depart on this adventure.

What happened to make us this way?  When do we stop looking less towards the future and start dwelling on the past?  We become preoccupied with the niggles of the present and start drowning in the regrets of what we coulda, woulda, shoulda done.  This shift in the scales between past and future prevent us from truly reaching our potential - with each shift of the weight back to the past, our hopes and dreams seem to sink with it.

These past four months of being off have provided me with some perspective of what I need to change about myself.    I have to stop regretting decisions of the past and realize everything has led me to a point, this point, in which I have an opportunity to make some great life changes.  I look forward to my months in Europe where I can live a carefree life, eat amazing food like it's my job and overwhelm my visual cortex with the sights of Europe.  I look forward to the new experiences with friends and new friendships I'll forge along the way.  I look forward to finding inspiration for some short stories or perhaps a novel.  And I appreciate the fact that I'm one lucky son of a bitch for being able to take this trip.  I really do.

For those of you curious of where I'll be, here's my itinerary - which is pretty much set:

Hong Kong - June 8 - 11

London - June 12 - 13

Lisbon - June 14 - 18

Porto - June 18 - 19

Faro / Lisbon - June 20 - 21

Madrid - June 22 - 24

South of Spain - June 25 - June 30

Barcelona - July 1 - 3

Zagreb - July 4 - 6

Split - Dubrovnik Cruise - July 7 - 13

Paris - July 14 - 22

London - July 23 - Aug 2 (OLYMPICS BABY!)

Edinburgh - Aug 2 - 11

London - Aug 12 - 15

Taipei - Aug 16 - ...

So here's to looking forward...and never looking back. 

Always look forward.  Looking back is a waste of time.