The Art Of Living ... Is To Live!!!

For those as yet unaware, I have recently taken more control of my life and following through on a goal I've been working hard to achieve for a few years.
OK so my post title may seem like I am being facetious or dismissive to the choices others make, but this is not the intent. I will explain my future plans and you will understand that the key to living a life you enjoy, is to visualise what you want, and then make it happen. Make decisions about your life, go with the flow, but choose a direction first.

I'm likely to get a bit philosophical in this and other upcoming posts, but you can't re-write your life without a bit of philosphical meandering, and if you do, it may not lead where you want.

So to get started, I recently resigned from my job. I've been working on the Gorgon Project on Barrow Island in Western Australia, for almost 4.5 years, and have spent half of my time on this island for over 3 years. It has been an interesting job, with some amazing people, and many awesome experiences.

I have however reached a point where I have realised that the goal I was planning 5+ years ago and set out to achieve 4.5 years ago has been reached and surpassed. I could continue to work here, and I would have more awesome experiences, and meet more amazing people, or I could set out into the wider world to explore new places. My plan was always to stay only as long as the lifestyle and the money outweighed the opportunities I was missing by being here. The balance has now been tipped, and a world full of opportunity is now far more important to me then increasing my savings, and taking short trips on my field breaks.

The timing is largely being driven by a number of opportunities that would otherwise be missed and I have always been a believer in grabbing opportunities when they are there, especially the one time only deals that will never be repeated.

So I have a rough plan, that's as much as I need for now, the details will come later as I have my adventures, and if you are interested, stick around, for I hope to have many stories to tell.

First up I have a trip to Bali for a wedding, my brother Brendan, and his lovely partner of many years Linda. There will be plenty of time with family and friends, and there will be some time for me to escape the tourist riddled areas so frequented by my fellow countrymen and explore the more remote areas of Bali, and discover what the Balinese are really like.

Following this trip I have one last stint at work, shortened to 10 days, and then ..... adventure and opportunity.

After a few days in Perth I will head to Indonesia to be field assistant for a friend doing a PhD on coral genetics for about 8-10 days, from there I will continue on to Tanzania for my friend’s wedding on Zanzibar. My friends are doing some safaris prior to the wedding I was previously going to miss, but will now be able to go on.

After they all depart after the wedding I will continue to explore Tanzania and then head south. I have a friend doing a PhD on sea turtles in Mozambique, she will be there around the end of Oct/start of Nov. I will arrive sometime after that and potentially stay and help out with her research and general turtle protection sort of stuff for a while.

I will eventually track south into South Africa where I have a good friend working in a hospital in a remote area south of Durban, her twin brother and his wife may also be moving there later this year.

So I hope to go and spend a bit of time there and maybe find a way to help out in the community, it is a poor area and I understand most of the men have to work away to be able to support their families, so there is bound to be many tasks that can be done to assist.

I don’t have a set time scale on Africa, where I will go and when, other than the rough outline above. I may stay there a long time, I may travel on through more of Africa or return to Australia, or elsewhere in the world. I plan to be open to what opportunities the universe presents to me, so for much of my future I expect I will be as surprised as many of you with what I do next. Some opportunities will take time and planning, others I suspect will appear and disappear in a blink, and I hope I see them and grab as many of them as I can.

Longer term ...

I don’t intend to even consider looking for another job (on a professional basis) for at least 2 years, it would take discovering a truly awesome opportunity to make me go back to a professional job. I have enough money to live comfortably in the places I want to visit for 5 – 10 years (probably the rest of my life if I moved to Laos).

I would however like to do some aid / disaster relief sort of work, Sth or Central America, SE Asia, Africa in order of preference. I would then following a stint of volunteer work, stay and explore the area.

I may get involved in some conservation type volunteer work, if I come across something I’m interested in.

Other long term options (besides aid / volunteer work) include becoming a dive guide somewhere tropical, teaching English in Sth / Central America or another exotic locale.

My motorbike is currently parked up in my dad’s shed in Brisbane, battery removed, cabled to the frame of the shed and covered. I have no idea of when I will get back to it, or what I will do at that point. I would like to travel and explore many places on the motorbike, in Australia and globally.

The idea from here is to not really have a plan, but just enjoy my life and be free to grab whatever opportunities I can find.

Before I leave you, I have a request. Anyone interested enough in my plans to get this far, I have a request or two.

My views on the world aren't unique, and the people I keep in my life share many aspects of my views, and have done may similar things.

First a simple request, I would like anyone who has done interesting volunteer work to share with me who they worked with and where, I need contacts, and on the topic of contacts, I always appreciate contacts for people who live where I am travelling. So for now my focus is Africa, but if you know people where I am heading, and they wouldn't mind some random stranger calling on them, contact details would be most appreciated.

Finally and most importantly ....

I realise that doing this will make it difficult to keep in touch with everyone I would like to, and I will by attrition lose contact with some of my friends over time, but I’ve always believed that my friends are always my friends no matter how far away they may be (or most likley how far away I am), nor does it matter to me how long since I have seen them for them to be an important part of my life.

My closest friends are all fun, interesting, adventurous, beautiful, friendly people and understand me well enough to know this is how I live my life.

So please keep in touch and continue to be one of the beautiful, adventurous and interesting people in my life and I would love to see you out in the big wide world sometime.

E.