This past December, I had an amazing 18-day off-the-beaten travel experience with my best friend in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. It was my best vacation to date, which I attribute to three things: 1) As time elapses I realize more and more enlightenment and have more and more fun in life 2) as time elapses I get a better understanding of what it is that I want 3) Central America is simply amazing.
Some takeaways from the experience:
I love Central America. What a hidden gem. Warm sunshine, friendly people, beautiful beaches and great surf, amazingly cheap and good food, some nice gems of cities, a beautiful language, lots of travelers, and relatively short distances between countries. These are still developing countries so it’s necessary to do your research before you go and to have a heightened sense of awareness in some places (e.g. the capitals), but these really are some amazing places on earth.
In life, you can’t worry about the things you can’t control. You should also know that whatever situation you get yourself into, you’ll do the best with what you have, where you are. You can let fear prevent you from moving forward, or you can feel the fear and do it anyway – and know that the rest is up to fate. (You’ll also find that often you eventually realize that your fear made it out to be a lot worse than it actually is).
When you really think about it, life is pretty simple: Tell the people who you love that you love them, find out what it is and who it is that you love and pursue, and fight for what you want in life. My best friend and I were exposed to thought exercises that required us to think through some potentially scary situations, such as armed gang members boarding our buses or being held up at gunpoint. Though these scenarios may or may not be all that common in developing countries (we heard accounts of this happening to a couple travelers we encountered but these events never happened to us nor to a large portion of the travelers we met), you still think through the what-ifs. That activity in and of itself further validated some points for me and has impacted the way I continue to approach my relationships. It’s good to get these reminders in life.
(Side note: You also become desensitized to these potential scenarios, realizing that gang members and robbers really only want your money and/or stuff – I personally packed knowing that everything I was taking I’d be prepared to hand over if it came to that. We also began to travel with a ‘robber fund,’ ensuring we always had cash that we would hand over in the event we needed to, even if this was as little as $4 each).
(Another side note: A lot of these places have become safer in recent years. A lot of the warnings outlined in the safety reports from the Canadian Embassy may even potentially be outdated. In Antigua, Guatemala, we found there were a ton of Tourist Police roaming the streets, and even police located on the volcanoes, even at nighttime. When doing your research, always be aware of what you’re reading and where it comes from – other sources of information on the Internet had much lighter tones when speaking about traveling through Central America – it’s best to take in all of the sources of information and then to develop your opinion).
This trip has definitely helped me become even more comfortable with risk and push my boundaries even further. Throughout the 18 days we continued to push our comfort zone and each risk we took resulted in an extremely positive experience, which we never would have realized had we not taken that risk. I’m still always assessing to make sure I don’t push things *too* far (though how do you know where and when that point is), but right now, I’m super appreciative of the experiences I’ve had to date, and am feeling a lot more light, carefree, and happy with my new personal risk threshold.
More thoughts on risk. What’s the bigger risk? Going traveling in less-developed countries, or letting fear hold you back in life, letting a small part of you die each time you don’t follow your heart and not becoming the person you could potentially be? (Not to mention the risks you encounter at home, such as sitting too much or not taking any risks at all). We heard a lot of “Oi, what are you doing?” and warnings when people heard of where we were going, including from Canadian airport border control, but I feel these sentiments are tied to several mental fallacies people make about risk, such as overestimating the probability of rare events. The way I see it, if you aren’t legitimately scared of the risk you are taking, then maybe the risk you’re taking isn’t big enough and you are living inside your comfort zone. (I also remind myself that as a woman I tend to be more inclined to take less risks in life (due to evolution), which is a piece of perspective that helps me further push my comfort zone – because without risk you can’t grow and can’t become all that you’re supposed to become).
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Over the past 18 months or so I have continued to run into questions about purpose. I think I finally have some answers. They aren’t complete answers but they are a great start.
Posted by natalializon 
so I thought I’d summarize some of the Twitter practices I’ve picked up over my past year of being active on Twitter. I’m seeing more individuals in my network start to become active in this space so thought I’d share some of the learnings in case there’s anything that others can leverage.
times exceeded =D. Writing and revising definitely helps me achieve and stay accountable.
before your half-marathon, or because there’s frost on the ground and your toes are cold, or you’re still in the tail end of a sickness, sooner or later you may find yourself experiencing a less-than-stellar run.
