21 Nov 2019

There are a rare few times in life when you find yourself completely free. 

No school, no study, no work. No weekend sport. No family dinner at 7 pm. No commitments to see friends, no housework to get done. Nothing. One of the most beautiful thoughts you will ever have in your life is; “for the next month, I don’t have to do anything.”

Think about it. From pre-school to primary school, to high school, maybe to uni – there’s always been stuff you needed to get done. Even in school holidays, even if you had no study and you’re days were completely free, you still probably had to be home by a certain hour or at the very least tell someone where you were going.

You might just have finished high school forever, but the truth is that while you're still hanging around home, there’s always stuff you have to do. See your mates, load the dishwasher, walk the dog... it’s unavoidable. And while being home is great, you’ll never quite experience true freedom while you're there.

True freedom occurs when you walk out of the airport and realise that you have absolutely nowhere to be.

Be it two weeks or six months, until you board that return flight you are at the complete liberty to do things your way, in your own time.

You can see ten cities in ten days, or you can explore every street in just one. You can eat what you want when you want. You can wake up early and hike to watch the sunrise, or you can sleep in till 3 pm and no one can tell you you're doing it wrong. 

You have the perfect excuse to skip any trivial family events and average parties you might’ve been forced into going to. There’s no quietly sneaking in through the back door at night and no explaining where you’ve been.

When you’re traveling, you make the plans and you can change them at the last minute without letting anybody down. Or you can make no plans at all and just go with the flow until something else catches your eye. It’s up to you.

If you have never experienced this type of freedom, you need to go traveling and you need to do it ASAP.

When school finishes, you’re in the best position to travel imaginable. It might be the best opportunity you’ll ever get in your life. After school, you can push all of the important ‘life’ stuff back a year. Uni and TAFE will let you defer and if you’re still not sure what you wanna do with your life, you could use some time away to think.

Travel now because as the years go on, you’ll find it harder and harder to get away for anything longer than a week or two at a time. You can’t 'defer' an offer for your dream job. Once you move out of home, the rent and food bills will skyrocket and saving becomes a challenge of its own. Then every weekend suddenly gets filled up, if not with events then with things like getting your car serviced and trips to Bunnings. Life goes on and freedom takes a back seat. 

So drop everything and get overseas now. Work in a casual job for a few months to get some money together and go. Travel for six months, travel for a year. Push life back for a little while and go experience what this world has to offer.

Right now you’re free to be truly free. Take that chance and bloody run with it.