International Travel: Living a Life without Regret

All regrets are mistakes, but not all mistakes are regrets. By that I mean only when you judge yourself for making a mistake can a mistake become a regret. Bronnie Ware (author of The Top Five Regrets of the Dying) once said, “I know a lady who wanted to travel internationally, but her husband didn’t allow her to do it. After her husband had been sent to a nursing home, she started to travel in her 80s alone. Yet a few weeks later, she was sent to a nursing home as well due to her illness. Not living her life on her terms was her biggest regret before she passed away.” Hence, if you really want to do something, do it now.

• How to live a life true to yourself:

This world is full of amazing things for you to explore. Yes, there are so many exciting things to experience and the number of missed opportunities is scary. Time has wings – now we are entering a new decade soon! If you think you are young, soon you’ll be old; if you think you are old, soon you’ll be older.

The best time to travel internationally was last year; the second-best time to travel internationally is this year.

Human beings are not biologically programmed to stay stagnant forever. We are all programmed to experience what this world has to offer and stay active forever. It’s time to explore this world now.

I understand that many people work really hard because they want to achieve success in their careers. Meanwhile, the society tells us that we should strike a balance because work/life balance is paramount. However, balance while establishing your career is probably a myth. But you don’t have to be miserable before you can be successful. I mean you can have a lot of reward along the way to success – in this day and age, a lot of people run online businesses or do freelance work on the internet, so they can travel internationally while making money on their laptops.

• How to do less and achieve more:

A controversial regret of the dying is “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard”. This statement was criticized by experts in the United Kingdom (they were complaining, “How can someone even say that?! Where is their work ethics?!”)

Well, but many people in nursing homes have that regret, and it’s a fact.

Truthfully, you can do less and achieve more if you focus on working smart rather than working hard. Of course, working hard is also of vital importance, yet working smart is probably more important, in my opinion. The key is to work more efficiently and effectively and stop focusing on working long hours.

My suggestion is you’d better simplify your work life. Adding more to your life complicates it. Complications cause logistical wrangling which takes too much time and energy that then cannot be invested in things which lead to the most satisfaction and joy, e.g. international travel.

Simplification will make your life easier. The less your life is bulging at the seams with complications and complexity, the more space you will have to show up for what actually matters. This is especially true if you want more time for international travel.

The key question to ask yourself in terms of any area of your life is: Is there a way I can get the desired result with fewer elements or fewer steps or in less time?

Your desired result here can be a sales target at work, a revenue goal in your business, a desire you have around your relationship with your children, or a way you would like to feel in your romantic relationship. No matter which area you are looking at, the same question still applies.

Provided you begin asking yourself this question regularly, you will realize how much energy and time you have previously wasted making things much more complicated than they actually need to be.

Surely, there may be a circumstance where you get lots of joy out of a set of meticulous steps to get a desired result, e.g. you love wine and you absolutely would like to travel to Italy & visit wineries there. Is it more complicated than ordering some Italian wine online? Yes. But the joy you get from this journey outweighs the fact that it’s probably more complicated.

In fact, I’m talking about things like unnecessary meetings at work, trying to make others happy, overthinking things, overmanaging life, taking on responsibilities and duties beyond your fundamental needs and those of your family, multiple jobs or businesses that are probably unnecessary, saying yes to too many activities, living according to others’ expectations, lacking good boundaries, trying to do everything by yourself, etc.

• How to simplify your life so that you have more energy and time for international travel:

You can consider the following ideas if they apply to you –

• Donating things that you don’t need anymore instead of going through the hassle of trying to sell them;
• Laundry delivery and pickup;
• Agreeing on who does what chores in the household so that it is preset and does not need to become a struggle or a problem;
• Working from home so that there is no commute (and you don’t need to buy professional clothes or dress up every day);
• Getting rid of extra cars that you don’t even need;
• Not owning high heels and only owning one other pair of shoes per season plus flip-flops, rain boots and sneakers (advice for women who would like to travel internationally);
• Keeping only one backpack, one bag and one mini-purse to prevent things getting lost in different bags (this advice is generally for women who are looking to travel internationally);
• Not exchanging holiday presents or cutting down on how many or with who you exchange holiday gifts (this is especially helpful when it comes to Christmastime);
• Making most of your meals out of just a few ingredients & keeping your meal rotation minimal in order to save money, energy and time.
• Paring down your closet to only items you absolutely love and work so well together (no matter you are a man or a woman, you can always have a capsule wardrobe which is much less stressful than a very crowded, overwhelming wardrobe);
• Cutting back on your kids’ activities, e.g. one activity per season per child;
• Ending relationships which add unnecessary complications and stress;
• Keeping your children’s toys to a minimum;
• Regular grocery delivery;
• Batching tasks or time blocking things such as making phone calls, errands and housework so time is not wasted on jumping from task to task/becoming distracted all the time;
• Meal planning or ingredient delivery service;
• Diaper delivery service (if your kids are young babies).

When you make steering toward simplicity in life a continuous focus, your life will become much more effortless. When your life is actually simple, doing less will become the default state, and it’s a really great thing which allows you to travel internationally.

“Strip back what’s not adding to your joy and satisfaction so that you are left with the simple basics of what actually matters.”