When You Feel Stuck in Life – to Travel or Settle Down?
I am pretty sure you know this feeling. That one when you feel stuck in life and not sure which way to go. You are lost and somehow hopeless.
I know you know. Because each of us at some point goes through moments of stuckness. No matter what your reasons for an internal fight against the unknowns of life are, you get to know the feeling.
This is where I am today and this is what I want to share with you guys.
You know, before starting this blog I made a commitment to turn it into a source, not a diary. I never wanted to write about my daily life, what I like, and what I don’t and in general just to tell stories about my routine.
I wanted this blog to be a source of information, hoping to encourage people to discover this planet through life and work abroad.
But today, 65 articles later, I am writing a post that looks more like one page from a diary. And, where I raise a curtain on something a bit personal.
Lately, a lot of readers were asking what our plans for the next year are. Followers on Instagram and readers of this blog were asking if we plan to settle down anywhere, perhaps return to the U.S., start a family, go back to office life, etc.
People want to know where we are, what’s happening in our lives, and where we are heading. With so many questions I decided to write this post, giving answers to at least some of them.
Surprisingly there is no answer
Honestly, there is no definite answer. During the last few months, both of us have been feeling a bit stuck with where we are at in life and where we want to be.
Travel lifestyle gave us a totally new perspective and helped to see the bigger picture. Above that, it opened a door to many opportunities.
It is absolutely incredible to be able to choose where and when you want to go next and in which country you would like to spend the next six months. You get used to this lifestyle with the speed of light and don’t want to stop, being so curious about how life in many other corners of our planet is.
Yes, I want to continue traveling slowly, discovering one place at a time while living and traveling in a foreign land. I dread the thought of returning to 9 (or more) hours of work per day schedule, counting days until my next vacation, taking a loan, or tying myself to one place. Frequent travel and life abroad became part of my daily routine. I now can’t imagine interrupting it.
Those of you who tried it, understand me well.
At the same time, living a travel lifestyle requires sacrifice and often brings us face to face with many uncertainties. Remote work, not having stability, or a place we can call home makes us wonder if it makes sense at all. Perhaps it would be better to find a ‘normal’, as many people say, job and settle down?
On the one hand, looking deeply into my soul, I can see this vague desire to have that one place I can call home.
We haven’t really found it yet, but part of me wouldn’t mind it. On the other hand, I am absolutely terrified of choosing to get into a comfort zone because I know it will hold me back in life.
I learned that travel is all about leaving my comfort zone on a daily basis, about challenges and education that transcends institutions. Settling down and getting in a comfort zone will take that privilege away.
It is totally OK not to have all the answers right away or not to have them at all
With these doubts and questions, I still learn that not having an answer right when you need it most is OK. Answers come with time and sometimes patience is all we need. Perhaps answers do not come at all, but it is part of a beautiful journey we call life. And life is not about deadlines and structures, life is about experiences.
I know I am not alone here. You may be asking a dozen questions too. Just on your own topic.
Searching, learning, and discovering who we are is an integral part of our life. I am not a fan of uncertainty or going with the flow. But at the same time, planning every step and day is not my thing too. It becomes depressing.
So for now, we set a goal to move in the same direction meaning being freelancers, developing this blog, and going to new destinations. If we find a place we love and if everything suits us perfectly, we may settle down. Or maybe not. Time will show.
What are our actual thoughts on what to do next year
Since we don’t have any clear answers to what to do next, for now, we plan to continue to live in travel. Continuation of the same lifestyle with a desire to move it to the next level sooner or later will clear the horizon and give us answers.
For the first time in our life, we want to spend winter somewhere where it is cold, snowy, and white. We would love to go back to Norway or visit Finland but don’t have this opportunity quite yet. There are not a lot of places in this world with amazingly white and gorgeous winters so we may end up flying somewhere where it is warm and sunny. We are still planning our travels for the next 6 months.
I definitely plan to invest more into this blog (my baby haha.) It taught me so much and now is bringing me to a totally new career.
Do we plan to expand our family? Yes, we do, one day. But frankly speaking, it’s not going to get put on the news.
The goal is not to go back to the States to the same routine we had prior to leaving the country. What an interesting thing life is. Who could ever tell that after dreaming for so many years about living in the U.S. there would be a day when I will flatly refuse to go back? Probably I would go back but without a need to jump in a rat race again. And that’s a totally different story.
Also, the goal for the next year is to change the way we travel. Before starting a blog we were eager to visit and live in countries that we personally had a huge interest in. But after learning ins and outs of blogging, researching the market and what people look for when planning their travels, I get a totally new perspective. Now I set a goal to visit places I wasn’t considering before.
Final Word
So we hope that next year we will get out of this stuckness and decide for ourselves where to actually make at least a temporary base.
We would love to discover a totally new part of the world, and try to live in one country that both of us have been having in mind for a long time! Follow us on Instagram to learn about this place when the time comes.
Also, we hope to return to the Balkans. After living in Budva Montenegro, Sarajevo in Bosnia, and then Turkey, we fell in love with this region. So hopefully, we will return to discover more.
Are you familiar with moments when you feel stuck in life? What do you usually do? How do you come up with a decision?
