I love sharing these personal posts with you each week and really enjoy reading the comments you guys post, especially when you feel something written here has resonated with you. There’s nothing better than connecting with someone who has felt the same way or thought something similar to you. Even though I share a lot of what goes through my mind and things I’ve learned and experienced, I want to keep things real by letting you know I’m far from perfect and am still learning every single day! Some days I’m as happy as a cow at a vegetarian food festival and other days I’m exhausted or feeling a little lost.
Over the weekend I was speaking with someone and was telling them how much I love reading things that are relatable and real. It’s always more inspiring to connect with or follow someone who shares the truth about their travels, their life journey and themselves. If I find someone on Instagram whose photos seem really unrelatable I struggle to follow them because it’s hard to look up to someone or something that seems impossibly perfect.
There’s really no such thing as a perfect life or a perfect person, we all have our good points and our opportunities for improvement. We all have our happy days and our sad days and we’re all continually learning and growing.
I’m a bit of a perfectionist and for the longest time I was looking at my life thinking, “When I achieve this, everything will be perfect.” That’s a pretty common thought to have, we think if we get a promotion, work on one aspect of who we are, get a new car or house etc, that we’ll have the perfect life. It took a while for me to work out, after getting really frustrated about it, that our life journey is ongoing and there’s no ‘place of perfection’ to reach.
I don’t know about you, but that was a real weight off my shoulders. There’s no exam to sit, no life quiz to ace, no high distinction to achieve. We are constantly learning, expanding, growing and changing and there won’t ever be a point where we are perfect or everything around us is perfect. What a relief! The only people we need to please are ourselves.
There are so many things that come into our lives each day that we have absolutely no control over. The list is endless. Challenging co-workers, bad drivers, negative friends, angry relatives, mean bosses, situations we don’t want to be in, things we didn’t want to happen, bad news we can’t avoid… it goes on. The beautiful thing is those really are out of our control, which means there’s no pressure on you to do anything to change them. The only thing required of you is to decide how to react to them… and you do have a choice. You always have a choice.
It’s quite easy to let these stresses and perceived responsibilities build up on you and crush you, make you feel like you have so much to do and take care of. The biggest and the best thing you can do is to let it all go, let go of everything you can’t control and focus only on the things you can control, within yourself. It’s kind of like those movies where someone finds a genie in a bottle and they have three wishes… one of the things the genie always tells people they can’t wish for is ‘to make someone else fall in love with you’. See, even Hollywood movies know you can’t control other people!!
So, if nobody is perfect and there is really no reasonable way we could ever expect to achieve perfection or control everything around us, what are we supposed to do with all our newfound spare time? I’ll tell you what…. start having a LOT of fun!
That’s right! Let your hair down… go crazy… get out there! Get amongst it, get all over it, get right up in there and up against it! Have all the fun you want to have. Because, what is life really about if you aren’t having fun and laughing, smiling and enjoying yourself?
I forget to have fun sometimes, I get really caught up in being an adult and thinking about grown-up things like financial security, the future, paying bills, fixing broken things, making very important lists etc. But you really do have to stop yourself and tell yourself to take a break and have a little fun, indulge the ‘little you’ that’s hanging out in there just begging to do some burnouts in a four-wheeler or start a water-bomb war with your partner.
Let’s be clear, I’m not saying you should stop paying your taxes and say to heck with obeying the speed limit. Let’s not lose all sense of moral direction, guys! I’m just saying it’s really important and really fulfilling when you get back to your child-like roots and have a bit of fun and silliness.
If you’re feeling really drained, exhausted, out of energy and just ‘over it’ try being a bit silly for a while and see how you feel. I find it really energises me because I completely forget about all the boring grown-up stuff and lose myself in the fun. While we were away over Christmas Matt and I slept on the bottom double-mattress of a bunk bed. We hung sheets on the sides of it and made it into a really cool little fort and found ourselves hanging out in there a lot! It was like being a kid again with a couch fort.
I also love to take time out to play games with my friends, watch stupid movies with no plot-line and really bad acting, spend a few hours drawing or painting or even wearing something a bit mismatched and silly. Have a dance battle with a friend and throw down your worst dance moves! Just lose yourself in something fun and indulge the side of you that loves to play. Let yourself laugh uncontrollably and make fun of yourself. Think back to the games you used to play when you were young or the things you’d do for fun when you had nowhere to be and nothing to do. Do those things and do them often.
If you ever find yourself feeling lost or overwhelmed just remember we’re all in this together. Nobody is perfect, nothing is perfect and it never will be. There’s no pressure on you to be anything but the beautiful person you are. So take some time out from all your grown-up responsibilities and let your freak flag fly!
Best travel resources for your trip!
If you found this post useful, please use the affiliate links below. I’ll make a small commission at no extra cost to you. Rest assured, these are the products and services I love and use. Read the disclaimer for more information. Thanks for your support! – Matt.
Hotels, I use Agoda
and Booking.com
Rentals: Discover Cars
RVs: Motorhome Republic
Transfers: Welcome Pickups
Rideshare: DiDi
Insurance: Cover-More
Tours: TourRadar
SIM Cards: Simify
VPN: Surfshark