Life Is Happening Without You

Stop waiting for the “right time” and go live your damn life

There’s a question I keep returning to over and over the more I travel: What are you waiting for?

Because at some point, whether we’re talking about travel or life (and I find travel to be an amazing metaphor for life), we all face the same fork in the road. We can sit still and wait for life to happen to us…or we can get up and go meet it halfway.

The more I travel, the more I find this isn’t really a question at all; human nature is to wander, to explore, to satisfy our curiosity….to live.

The world doesn’t come to you. At some point, you have to go to it.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
—Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

It’s easy to stay put. Familiar routines are comfortable. Predictable. Safe. But as one of my favourite lines from Dead Poets Society wisely said, “No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.” Travel does that; it introduces new ideas simply by forcing you to move your feet.

You don’t have to blow up your life overnight. You just have to start asking better questions.

Stillness isn’t weakness. It’s the moment before you decide to move.

We all start out curious. Kids are the world’s natural-born explorers: asking questions, sticking things in their mouthes they probably shouldn’t, and wandering off without a plan. Somewhere along the way, curiosity gets labeled as impractical. Responsibility creeps in. Schedules harden. “Someday” becomes a holding pattern.

But as Ferris Bueller warned us (very politely, all things considered): “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Travel forces us to stop. To have a look around.

White Sands Proof that stillness can still feel like endless wonder.

The unexamined life isn’t dangerous, it’s just…quiet. And sometimes quiet is exactly what keeps us from noticing what else might be possible.

Every trip I’ve taken that has stuck with me and made me who I am started the same way: mild discomfort, unanswered questions, and the nagging sense that staying put would’ve been easier.

Easier, yes. Better? Rarely.

Sri Lanka. Elephants crossing a river without hesitation.

So here’s the only question that really matters:

What are you waiting for?

Permission? Perfect timing? Fewer responsibilities? More certainty?

Travel has taught me that none of those things arrive first. Movement does.

You don’t have to seize the day.
You just have to stop postponing it.

And sometimes, the first simple step forward is all it takes.