10 Unfiltered Lessons After 5 Months Quitting My Job to Travel the World (and Myself)
It was a challenging decision.
It took me over 8 months to quit my job, a couple of meditations, dozens of podcasts, a proper position between sun and moon, some aligned stars, and yearly reviews I had every year.
I was anxious for some days, leading to my last day of office life.
I was afraid I wouldn’t know what to do when unemployed.
At the back of my head, some questions keep emerging themselves out of control:
- How do I spend my day?
- Will I be lonely since I have no regular conversations with my colleagues?
- Do I have a goal?
- Where should I go?
- What things should I learn?
- Can I tell myself to do the things I am supposed to be doing?
- How can I make myself more accountable?
- Am I gonna be a lazy-ass person?
- What am I trying to achieve during this career break?
- What if my travel turns out to be a stupid experience?
- What if I couldn’t find a new job?
The list goes on and on…
But, with the power of calculative thinking, I turned the noise down and embraced the change.
Here are the 10 unfiltered things I learned during my career break to explore the world (and myself):
1) Breaking away from the default path
Since we were kids, we’ve been raised and told who we would be later in life.
What sort of jobs were we going to work on.
What kind of ladders do we need to climb.
What type of fields do we need to master.
Our society is optimized toward achievement.
We’ve been programmed to do what we were told to do without being able to think for ourselves.
To look at ourselves closer in the mirror and ask:
“Is this the thing I will do for the rest of my life? If not, do I have an agency to change my life projection? Am I striving for a fulfilling life or just barely surviving?”
Breaking from what normal society told me to do is a blessing and privilege.
Finally, for once in my life, I could have time for myself to reprogram and repurpose everything.
To see things differently from the perspective of an ex-worker.
To move away from the default path.
The path with the least resistance.
To move to the path of higher resistance.
The default path is the stories you tell inside your head that you should or shouldn’t do.
It’s the script you run in your unconscious about what you should achieve in your 20s or more.
It can be going to college, getting a good grade, getting a good job, making a high salary, climbing the corporate ladder, buying a house, getting married, and having a family.
Without even asking if there’s a life beyond the default path.
The path that you have not explored yet.
I’m not against the default path, as there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it’s done consciously.
As long as you understand the trade-off between doing the default thing or exploring the untethered path you’ve longed to experience.
For some people, I know they hate their jobs, but they keep on doing it for whatever reasons they have in their heads.
I grew bitter if I hated what I was doing, and I didn’t want that trait represented in me.
I became dispassionate and lacked energy if I didn’t like what I was doing.
So, I decided to move on.
Personally, I am excited to explore a new path beyond normal.
To embark on a new phase of life where things are with more conscious intention.
To play the long-term game.
To align myself to the things that I want to pursue.
So, the next time I aim for something new, I will be more convinced that I chose that path, not anyone else.
2) Ability to think for yourself
When was the last time you think for yourself?
Thinking for yourself demonstrates independent and critical thinking, making decisions based on your own analysis of information rather than simply following the opinions or beliefs of others.
By being able to think for myself, I could find the things that I value the most.
I like to work everywhere I want.
I like to have more control over how I spend my time.
I like it when I am passionate about doing something I love.
I like being able to select things that I want to work on.
I like to do things the way I want to do it.
I like exploring new ways to do the work.
I hate relics of the past.
So, I shifted all my work and career trajectory towards moving in these directions.
Until I recently realized how much I care about being an independent individual who can generate resources from the work I value the most, regardless of time and space.
3) Career as mountains to conquer, not a ladder to climb
One of the biggest lies in the past.
We’ve been told that the only way to progress in our careers is by climbing the corporate ladder for the rest of our lives.
Unfortunately, it no longer applies in the modern age as of now.
We have so many options to do.
There are so many career options we can choose from.
The options are abundant.
Who would have thought you could dance around in front of a camera while making money?
Who would have thought you could travel worldwide and make more money than your parents, who have been grinding themselves in a cubicle for ages?
Who would have thought you could talk shit with your friends and make a podcast out of it?
Who would have thought you could become a designer with no skill in painting or designing a fantastic image in less than one minute by instructing AI to do it?
Who would have thought you could sell your unique recipes as a cook and make a decent income?
Who would have thought you could sell your training regimes and become a personal trainer?
Who would have thought you could write something interesting and charge a subscription fee to make a decent life?
Who would have thought you could design an app and work online with the smartest people on earth?
A ladder to climb is a relic of the past.
Have you ever thought, what if the ladder has been standing againts the wrong wall in the first place?
If we could be all wrong in selecting our mates, can we not be wrong when choosing our careers?
Instead of perceiving a career as a single pursuit of climbing a ladder, I’d take a different approach to pursuing a career as mountains to conquer.
Mountains have more color.
Some people can get to the top fast, but there’s no guarantee that is the end.
Some mountains are easier to climb, some don’t.
Some have more forests and waterfalls, and some are barren.
Some have a nicer view, and some don’t.
Some require a rope and different tools to get to the top, and some require an additional ladder.
Some require you to camp for more than a week to conquer it, some only three days.
It’s all in your control on how you want to navigate it.
What would you do if you reached the top?
Would you stay there or find another mountain to conquer?
What are the trade-offs?
What would you do if it’s not the mountain you’d like to pursue while you are already halfway to the summit?
Well, there’s only one answer.
You’ve got to go back down.
Kick your ego out of the equation.
Adopting a beginner’s mindset to set for a new journey ahead.
A new mountain to climb. A new world to experience.
And a new you that rises to the top.
4) On being creative
How much of your work requires creative thinking?
Well, if it’s less than 50%, congrats, you’re going to be replaced by AI.
Have you ever thought how much time you’ve spent attending unplanned meetings that could have been an email?
Have you ever thought that what you’ve been doing is a repetitive task that you know you hate, but you keep doing it, hoping it will get better soon?
Nope, it won’t.
Have you ever thought your work doesn’t require a creative solution and complex thinking because it’s a low-level job that an intern could have done?
Do you think you had a productive day because you attended many meetings that did not drive business impact?
Do you think you had a productive day because you attended more than 10 calls in a day?
Do you think you are more important than others because you attended many meetings?
Do you think you’ve done an excellent job just because you have worked late until midnight or over the weekend?
Have you ever calculated how much your time is spent creating and consuming?
Have you ever calculated how much time you spend passively attending some calls vs. actually doing the work?
We have lost ourselves in the illusion of productivity.
I find myself happier if I create, actively learn, or get into the writing flow.
It can be a new way to make money, new tools to uncover, new vocabulary to learn, and a new project to work on.
At this point, I couldn’t think of any other way to spend my time wisely unless I wrote.
The state where looking for words to write in feels so light and easy to find.
I can spend a whole day writing the stuff I am passionate about.
I write long-form content.
I write a long-form tweet.
I write a more robust daily journal.
I write a yearly review.
I write my own career break reflection.
You can’t lie to yourself when writing.
That’s the only way to get to the truth.
But most of us do not have a chance to ask ourselves these questions.
We’ve been so busy moving our attention to the next IG stories we will create.
We look at funny videos on TikTok, watch cat videos 3 hours long on YouTube, and binge-watch a TV series overnight on Netflix.
We’ve lost the meaning of boredom.
Boredom is a signal emotion like pain or anger, warning us that something needs fixing, that what we’re doing isn’t good for us.
So, doing something to distract from that feeling, like getting drunk to numb pain or passively consuming something to alleviate boredom, isn’t addressing the underlying problem.
Boredom is the source of creativity.
If you just look deeper inside.
5) On making more new friends
When was the last time you made new friends?
When did you last put yourself in an uncomfortable situation meeting new people outside your common communities?
That awkward moment when you are running out of words to continue a proper dialogue with new strangers.
That moment where some people are just not interested in talking to you.
They just don’t want to give the balls back at you.
It makes you question yourself if there’s something wrong with you.
Then, you realize it’s not about you; it’s on them.
We are all playing the numbers game.
You can’t expect everyone to like you.
It’s fucking stupid.
Meeting new people is what makes traveling worthwhile.
You can learn a whole new vocabulary of things.
You can learn that many people are nice.
It’s the complete opposite of what you thought they were.
It feels good to prove otherwise.
You don’t know what you’re gonna get.
In its mystery, we find something to chase for.
6) New shits everyday
When was the last time you were in awe and experienced a new kind of feeling?
A strange kind of feeling that you are not familiar with, but it leaves you with a mystery to unravel.
Your jaw dropped to the floor because you saw a beautiful mountain surrounding a small but tranquil village with a river flowing to the sea.
As you gaze upon a magnificent city, you are at a loss for words. A canal runs alongside the road, and people are leisurely spending time with their loved ones, laughing and enjoying themselves to the fullest.
When was the last time you were lost?
Lost in the alley of a crowded city.
A city that never sleeps.
A city that demands a huge amount of energy from its inhabitants to keep it floating and cater to the needs of those who love to wander.
Despite its chaos, the city never fails to keep its light aglow, providing warmth that beckons to those who are lost.
When was the last time you ate a new food?
Some foods that make you wonder if you’re gonna like it or not.
Foods that you’ve never tried once in your life.
Foods that look like a risk you are unwilling to suffer because of their financial and emotional cost.
But you’ve gotta do it anyway because you are traveling in search of wonder and awe of the new world.
Solo-traveling has been one of my life-changing decision for my life.
There are shit tons of lessons learned, I realized while solo traveling.
7) Productizing yourself
We live in an age of abundance.
It is so easy to get entertained nowadays.
We go to TikTok to look for funny videos.
We read highly valuable content on Substack/Medium.
We look at Instagram to see how amazing our friends live now.
We open a food app to find some lunch and dinner.
We look at LinkedIn to find another job.
We open Twitter to find live news all around us.
We open YouTube to learn a new way of doing things.
Nothing to do? We binge-watched Netflix overnight.
But what do these apps have things in common?
They are built upon a particular set of people who provide value to the world.
The barrier to making money has never been lower. Yet, many of us are still afraid to risk ourselves in the face of humiliation.
We are so risk averse to looking stupid for doing something new that can benefit the world.
Many people can make a living out of their passion and skills.
Many people make money while traveling the world, taking pictures, and recording videos.
Some people are making money cooking food and selling recipes.
Others build a fitness coaching program and sell their courses online.
Others teach a beginner how to design UI/UX on an app.
I found some people who teach English online in non-English countries.
Productivity junkie sells their notion template on Gumroad.
Some people discuss a particular set of their favorite topics and make money from ads on their podcasts.
There are a thousand ways of making money, yet we keep asking how we can make money.
But no one guarantees that you’re gonna be successful.
There are some prices that you’ve got to pay for that.
One of the prices is how suck it is to be bad at something new.
Something that you have just started but has yet to do before.
Sucking is the first step to being good at something.
So, hold your head high and embrace of being suck!
8) To be in discomfort every day.
Being in discomfort is hard, especially now that we live in a comforting time, considering almost everything is at our fingertips.
Losing a monthly income is tough.
The dopamine rush at the end of the month vanished into thin air.
I no longer receive money in my bank account.
It sometimes hurts, mainly because we live in a culture where we get judged by the jobs we do and what we are working on.
I find it hard to tell people about myself when that status is no longer within me.
It was less exciting than when I got a job as a Product Manager.
Telling people I’m having a career break is less exciting than working for X Company.
I could see in some people’s eyes that they had lost interest in me to keep the conversation going.
In every country I have visited, I didn’t have friends. There was no one I could reach out to for a conversation aside from my Airbnb host by default.
It makes me realize how important it is to have friends we can call and ask for a meetup at a coffee shop.
Having friends that we can hang out with is comforting. But, going with friends when traveling can also hinder us from being discomfort as we are less likely to talk to strangers.
Discomfort is good. It drives us to solve what makes us uncomfortable in the first place.
I went out and spoke to strangers or anyone I could talk to.
Queue in line? Talk to a stranger.
At the bar? Talk to the bartender.
At the park? Talk to someone who’s reading a book.
On a hike to a mountain? Talk to fellow hikers, etc.
Every day is an endless discomfort of finding a topic I can discuss and facing rejection if they don’t reciprocate.
Over time, I started to like it because I could hear many stories about people’s lives.
It feels like there’s a new Netflix episode every day without knowing the plot.
It keeps on surprising me.
9) On living below your means
One of my biggest realizations was learning that I could reduce my living cost by 30% by keeping my perceived happiness the same, if not more.
The way I used to spend my money doesn’t correlate with my happiness level.
The fact that I could live and stay in a small village in people’s houses explains that my happiness is not determined by how much I spend on certain things.
It blew my mind!
That fancy coffee I used to consume, a fancy bar I used to hang out, the fancy restaurant I used to have for lunch, and any luxury shits I used to buy meant nothing to the things that I find meaningful and fulfilling, like going to the gym, running, having a 30 minutes long walk without device/music, cooking my own food, writing my newsletter, learning something new, exploring the nature, and seeing a beautiful sunset.
All of those require less money than most people think. And yet, most people weigh themselves toward a luxurious life.
To be honest, I am not against luxury life; it’s good if you have it: fancy hotels and vacations are worth chasing for sometimes.
But most people like a luxury not because they need it but to keep them playing in a status game.
It’s keeping up with the Joneses.
One of the best quotes from Fight Club explains it at its best:
“We buy things we don’t need with the money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”
I will not return to how I used to spend my money.
I apply some filters to help me make good decisions along the way.
We all play a game at a certain level.
But realizing I was playing the wrong game makes me more conscious of how I should spend my money moving forward.
An ability to live below your means is a superpower in the modern world.
10) On becoming a high-agency individual
Not having a job and monthly income makes me do something that I’ve never done in the first place.
The insecurity of having no job is real sometimes.
Not having regular conversations with colleagues in an office makes me more active in reaching out to some friends I’d like to hang out with.
Losing something is letting something new come out to your life.
It can be a new job, a new project, and a new part of yourself that you’ve never known existed all this time.
Sometimes, all you need is a little bit of push.
I talk to strangers to make some new friends. Made some friends from around the world.
I join a meetup to meet more interesting people. The world is indeed full of exciting stories.
I joined an online course to equip myself with more robust skills to productize myself and use it to serve many people. I learned to be a better salesman.
I look for a community to find like-minded people. I found other people who are on the same journey as me.
I cold-pitched more than 100 people to sell my service. Putting myself in more rejections when knowing they don’t need my service in the first place.
I write long-form content every week.
I write long-form tweets every day.
I take a daily journey every day with a more robust template to learn about my day better.
I keep on running for my brain health and cognitive function.
I keep on going to the gym to build a better physique. Learned that lifting heavier things induces a drive to tackle bigger challenges within me.
Having no job is not losing out of control.
It shows me that I have more control over my life.
I do not have to answer to someone.
I do not have to lend my time to someone.
It makes me more convinced that I love having more agency in how I spend my time.
It drives me to push myself forward because no one will tell you what to do but yourself!
Good decisions can only be assessed by looking backward. That’s what I am doing now.
As part of the ritual for the end of the year, I am spending more time on reflection thoughts by having a yearly review.
Truly can’t wait for 2024; I hope it’s as surprising as it was in 2023.
If you ask me what my biggest decision in 2023 is, it’s definitely quitting my job to explore the world and myself.
If I had created a life’s guide for my children, solo traveling for 6–12 months would be the top choice. It would ultimately open their eyes to more opportunities, risks, discomfort, suffering, and huge lessons learned.
Here’s to exploring more things in life!
