Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be 24.

Just a couple years ago I thought about what I might be doing whilst pushing my mid 20s.

Living in Vietnam teaching English never seemed realistic in my head.

I did ponder many bold ideas though - joining the peace corps, working for a cruise company, volunteering with the Jaguar Rescue Center Foundation in Costa Rica, working for a news outlet, living on the road out of a van miraculously navigating freelance work, potentially striving towards another degree, attainting my teaching credential. I never could have guessed that buying a one way ticket to Paris, backed simply by the idea that I'd visit two very close loved ones at the same time in the same place, would have led me to live one of my most magnificent stories yet.

When I purchased that ticket, I knew I'd have to bend the truth a little bit. OK maybe more than a bit. There was no way I'd bring myself to share with my parent's those words few are comfortable hearing: "I don't know when I'll come back."

So, I told them a rough plan of the international excursion, spending a month or two in Europe and a month in Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, or maybe Indonesia. No longer than three or four months. I told my friends I'd be gone for maybe two to three months, sort of just, you know, winging it.

But truthfully, I knew my journey would go this way. Of course I had no plan to live in India for two months, travel nearly a month through Nepal, meet my brother Kyle in Cambodia to shoot photos for his church, Willow Creek, or teach English in Vietnam. But I've come to know myself well. Well enough to know that I could never settle into something without seeing at least a portion of this world. Never settle into a job knowing that one of my biggest dreams was, and still is, to cover as much of this planet as I humanly can. No committed relationship. No apartment lease tying me to the States. Doing this partially on my own just made the adventure that much more challenging, rewarding, enlightening, and freeing, a defining quality of this exploration I wouldn't trade for anything.

And sometimes I do wish I confronted my emotions more and chose to endure the rather long and painful goodbye that may have caused greater sting in the receiving end but with transparency and a truthful farewell. To let them know how much weight they hold in my heart, that we'd embrace again one day, that there is just something bigger whispering to my spirit, another life waiting to be sung.

And I'm sure my ego was involved in the decision... "What if you tell them the truth? That you're going to be gone for a while, six months or even twelve, and what if it doesn't work out? What if you come home after two months?"

And I'm sure part of it was my fearful, non-confrontational nature keeping everything in and not wanting to explain myself or fight on the length of the trip, not allowing myself to be vulnerable in parting with my home, not surrendering to sorrow, not collapsing to my knees at the goodbye to my mother and father, not wanting to remember what another round of holidays would be like alone, not being involved in the evolvement of my family and the lives of my relatives, and definitely not ready to miss out on hundreds of memories being made back home with my close friends.

There's a lot you put on hold when you just take off the way I did. There's so much you don't see or feel until you choose to go after something you really want.

But in writing this, at my desk, in my room, in one of the biggest cities in the world, I'm looking around at the three filled journals to my left, letters written to me by the kids from the Nepali orphanage taped to my wall, my Rishikesh YogPeeth Yoga mat on my floor that I received upon completing 200 hours of training, my Catalan flag from Spain I bought in the streets during the referendum when the Republic declared independence and failed, and my motorbike keys, plants, and room decor reminding me this is Home now. I see the weight all these grand experiences hold so deeply in my heart and the how they engrained such distinctiveness within me. A lesson, a friendship, an achievement, more accountability, new patience, deeper empathy, greater resilience, redefined fear, a quieter mind.

I'm humbled looking at my recklessness in the past seven months towards the development of a relentless, zealous ambition. I've finally understood that I can do anything I want if I choose to believe in it and in my own resilience. I think all it takes is a big leap of faith and screw-it attitude to remind yourself of how short life is and how too serious we all take it sometimes.

Find something that you know will electrify you, don't think too hard about it, just notice something that makes your skin buzz, something that adds pressure on your heart. Follow whatever that thing is for purpose of a more meaningful perspective. Nothing selfish. But until then, you may find yourself sitting in the confines of fear, security, naivety, all detriments to your spirit and soul and the fruition of your life and future.

Learn to love your life. One life. A delicate, quick life with so much meaning to explore, experiment, observe, test, risk a lot for.

Flying High