A great story never started with a salad...
Frequent travellers will know that not everything will go as planned.
Believe it or not, that's not always a bad thing.
Here's is why I want you to celebrate the shit that happens in your wanderlust life.
What I've discovered on my travels and in all the people I've met along the way is, Shit happens.
To everyone.
Barely ever do I meet people who dust off their backpack with not one awful, gruesome or grinch-worthy story to tell.
No matter if it's a stolen passport in a third world country, getting hopelessly lost in one of the biggest cities of the world or a near death experience, falling off cliffs in order to get away from a party (Yes, Mark. Looking at you right now).
The most interesting stories are also the most intense ones. When strangers share their most important (travel) story you can bet that 9 out of 10 times, it's not gonna be a love story, or a story about winning the lottery.
These stories are about moments of despair, about rough circumstances, the hardships one has to overcome.
With these stories comes the feeling of relief.
People immediately share laughs in between gasps of disbelief.
The pure joy of having made it through it, completely changes the way one might look at scenarios that are scary, frightening or sheer horrifying.
Bad experiences make the best stories.
Of course you will enjoy the sunset at the beach, but it's not the colour of the water you will describe when you come home.
The stories you take with you and keep on telling, are the ones that had the biggest impact on you.
If something bad happens to you but you found a way to work through it, that's when you grow.
That's what makes you more of who you are.
The journey, the struggle and the happy endings that you didn't see coming.
It's like what they (them being physiotherapists, explaining how muscles work to me) say about your body; After the most intense exhaustion comes the biggest relaxation.
I guess great stories really never start with eating a salad, unless a cockroach makes it into it or a deadly plant.
What doesn't kill us really makes us stronger. Not only that. It makes us empathise with others.
It makes us say "This sucks, but you'll make it through it" to a friend that needs to hear everything is going to be okay.
So blessed be your scars and the skills you've developed getting them.
Pictures were taken in Amed, Bali where I got to spend some amazing time with the wifey.
Yours truly,
T.
