Putting things into perspective

Well... The last few days have been crazy. As you all can see from posts from Cass and Ryan, it has not been an easy transition into this trip.  One of the thoughts that has been running through my head is putting everything into perspective. Coming across people that are in my life as the trip date closed in, I kept hearing the excitement in their voices for what this trip will be for us.  Also some of what I experience is this idea that it is all roses. Here's the thing. We all have things in our lives that are important to us. Also the nature of things is that we have to find balance and at times sacrifice things in order to follow our greater paths. I know it might sound odd, but we all have to work hard to make this trip happen. We have to leave people, work, and some of our responsibility behind. Its a sacrifice in its own way. I have seen the struggle that each of us has had to go thru in order to get ready for this trip. And its stressful! Duh!!! I think our natural state is to find comfort or a niche and stick with it... have the ebb and flow of cycling thru what we know is to come and be prepared for it. I personally think this is why a lot of people do not do trips like this. We are a slave to the life that we build around ourselves. BUT!... its all an illusion. The things that are important to us in life will be there. As Ryan said earlier... stuff will go on without us there. what we do have control over is making the choice to do something different. To understand that there will be stress of changing the cycle, the pattern will stop. The reward however, is what makes it all worth it. It is what feeds us and helps us grow and change as a person. If we stay in the same cycle, what is the point of waking up? "why not?!" That was the mentality that we had in Asia. Embrace it all. Expose yourself to the world, to new things. Build yourself into a more well rounded human. And most important, follow your heart and your passions. That is the driving force behind this trip. We cannot help ourselves but go thru all the stress of leaving, because its important to our drive to live. And the funny thing is at the end of it all, it will come full circle. Because when we return... it will again put things into perspective. Its a never ending process. Seems like a pretty good reason to wake up tomorrow.

Chat with you all soon after we get to Athens in about 20hrs.