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Building career vs travelling

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by BadassFrost, Dec 1, 2017.

  1. BadassFrost

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    Hey guys, I have a question. Imagine you are young and pretty inexperienced in life (if you are not), soon to finish high school or university and you would have to chose between these 2 options, which one would you choose?

    1, Start your way on building your career (and go to university first if you just finished high school) from the beginning, with a chance of being successful and possibly earning a lot of money, but at the cost of working very hard, getting sometimes more or less stressed and basically dedicating your young years to a vision of success, stability and possibly a nice amount of money, that may come to you when you are no longer that young and full of energy. Oh and your parents want you to go for this option.

    2, Pack your stuff and some money, and go exploring the world (alone or with 1 person), and basically dedicate your time to travelling. You may experience adventure, see places that you otherwise wouldn't probably visit, meet new people abroad and earn money for living by doing non-professional / temporary jobs (like working in hostels, teaching English in some countries, etc.) or maybe even starting a travel blog (and possibly becoming successful with it). You are not sure what the future will bring, or how long you'll be travelling, because your focus is rather 'the now'.
     
  2. Shoei Loei

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    Well I’m in my late twenties, but I’m new to my career...I was in college for 5 years, grad school for about 3 years, and went back to earn a teaching credential in 1 year. I spent about 9 years in college total, mostly because I couldn’t make up my mind as to what I wanted to do with my life. For me, going to college was a given. Everyone in my family had gone to college, although my mom was the only one to actually do something with her life after college. So for me, it was more like I knew I would go to college, but it was a matter of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to study. I’ve never been an adventurous person...always been kind of driven by my academics and aspirations, so I really wanted to spend my time getting established into a career. Now that I’m in my career, have my life settled, and make a livable amount of money, I’m still young enough to enjoy the time I have to travel and do things I’ve always wanted to do. That’s how I see it anyways, but it’s really up to you and what you want for yourself. Nothing in life ever goes according to plan, but you’ll probably finish school and enter a career path while you’re still young and healthy enough to have the adventures you want to have. I know one middle ground might be to go to a community college, take classes there to get college credit and see what you enjoy, but you’ll also have some of the freedom to travel and do the things you want to do...it’s like an in between. Or maybe you could try studying abroad? That’s the best of both worlds because you would get to experience a new country, but you would still be in school. But like I said, this is a decision you would have to make for yourself...it’s really up to the individual. :slight_smile:
     
  3. OGS

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    I would suggest number 2. Number 1 will always be there when you get back. I spent a year backpacking through India after my undergraduate degree. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. It was amazing! Plus, now that I have a job, a home, a mortgage there's no way I could do something like that. And when I got back the experience made me more attractive to schools and employers, not less. Please, please, please be young while you're young. There's so much time to be not young and to be responsible and, frankly, it's a lot easier to do if you have a little youth under you belt for perspective.
     
  4. hyacinth girl

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    I think most people would benefit from getting some life experience before they start focusing on a career. I can only speak for myself, but I know I definitely wasn't ready to go straight to university. Instead I took a few years out and didn't go to uni until I really, really wanted to and actually knew what I wanted to study instead of just picking the least bad subject.
     
  5. BadassFrost

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    Thanks for answers guys :slight_smile: Your posts actually helped me a lot.

    Sometimes I just have these moments when I'm a bit depressed because I don't know to where should I try to direct my life. For many years I struggled a lot because I had literally NO idea which career path should I take. Now when I already roughly know, I still get sometimes this feeling that maybe that's not it, maybe I should try something else.. this is especially because I'm close to finish high school and soon I'm expected to choose the university. And sometimes I have a chaos in my head about all of this.. And there's just this one thing I'm 100% sure I want to do in my life while I'm still young: travel a lot.
    Actually my whole family, except for my dad, thinks that travelling for more than 2 weeks is a crazy idea. But I'm ready to prove them wrong one day.
    My current 'dream plan' is to go to university and finish my undergraduate degree (plus there's a high chance I'll get to a university abroad actually!), and then right after that take at least 1 gap year and go travel somewhere far away...
     
  6. Lin1

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    I have picked number 2 for myself.

    Left to live abroad for a year when I was 16, loved it, then came back but I just couldn't adjust back to life back home. I still finished high school but did it traveling (only coming back for the final exam). I got my high school diploma (despite people telling me I would never get it if I wasn't doing things the "right" way) and now, 4 Years later, I have lived in 7 countries and visited almost 30 countries all over the world and I already have a few trips planned for 2018!

    I left my home country for good when I was 18 with the equivalent of 250$ in my pocket and I have never looked back.

    Doing this has been the best decision I have ever taken.

    There's been days of stress, days of worrying about money and the future and a lot of days where I have wondered "what if" , "what if I am not doing the right thing?" "what if I am fucking up my future?" but what if I don't have a future? What if all I have is now? Building for the future is nice but none of us is guaranteed a future, I have seen people my age , that I knew, pass away recently. Friends who will never even make it to their 25th birthday and it breaks my heart but also comfort me in my choice to have pick the life I have picked. There is no doubt in my mind for me that had my friends been told that they would die the day they did they wouldn't for a minute have thought "damn, that day would be easier if I was rich." I think they would probably have thought " man, I wish I had known earlier so I could have done that one thing I really wanted to do but always postponned out of lazyness or simply because I thought I had more time."

    We are made to believe that we will have more time that, that there is always a tomorrow and that we have a "whole life ahead of us", but actually none of us have any clue if our "whole life" is going to be 23 years long or 95!

    And even if we were to all live until 100 years old that's still only 36 500 days being alive. 6570 of them spent waiting to turn 18 and 10.950 spent being old (70yo to 100yo) that only lives us with what 52 years at best (or 18,980 days) to enjoy life if we are lucky ( as in no cancer, no car crash, no early-onset dementia). Years that we are supposedly supposed to spend working as we now don't retire until at the very earliest 67. So what do we do? How do we reconcile what's expected of us vs what we want to do? I am not sure, I picked option 2 because I know that when the moment will come for me to face death I won't regret this. I won't regret the memories, the sights, the laughs and amazing chats and drunken nights with strangers all over the planet. I won't regret not working an average job that lives me stressed for minimum pay and little holiday, I won't even regret being broke when I am old (if I happen to be) because I will have so many things to say, talk about, reminiscence, I feel much more rich than any rich person (and I know quite a few) because I am rich of so many experiences that money can't necessarily buy and that only few people will get to experiment and if had to do it all again, the good and the bad, I would, I totally would.

    So far, traveling and living the "nomad" life has only been positive. I speak several languages which means I easily find work and employers find the fact that I can adapt to so many lifestyle a plus. I can earn a lot of money and live very good lifestyle in countries where the cost of life is low and my language skills aren't that common while in more expensive countries it may sometimes be a bit tougher but it doesn't matter. Money isn't my motivation and I am an econome anyway but yes, you could actually live a very good life even as a nomad if you have great skills and know how to advertise yourself properly. You could even be paid to travel who knows(I have a few times).

    My advice is, do what you want to do the most and what you know you will regret the least. There are so many benifits to seeing new landscapes, learning new skills, meeting new people and getting to know yourself. There are also many benefits to living a more traditional life (stability, stronger bonds with family and friends, easier to start a family etc...). Pick your poison as I like to say. ;-)

    Good luck, I wish you the best! And who knows? Maybe we will casually cross path on the road someday. :wink:
     
    #6 Lin1, Dec 4, 2017
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2017