Dollar a day wayfaring experience
A month long travel on strict budget to carve the better you
“You Cant Do That”
That four words are often thrown by the little man within us or the outer world at our uniqueness, purely based on someone’s opinion backed by non-factual reality, but a perspective. Sometimes we need to get out of the bias and fallacies to just enjoy being present and doing something just for the sake of it.
Playing safe, doing what you are told and walking on the line, following step by step in life cannot let us expand our potential, but by testing our limits, trying to do what we can’t is the essence of learning something new outside the comfort zone. Sometimes our mind talks us out from doing unknowns even if it is necessary.
To validate this, I can’t remember a better real example than the Prison experiment upon men captured on enemy lines in a war and were sentenced to be killed or given an other option to go into a unknown door, full of unknown howls. The men preferred to die rather than unknown-unknowns, Which actually was an exit door(freedom). Most people take actions based on experiences of them or someone else with very finite information and thus avoid exploring all chances, so much so that it becomes habitual and norm(comfort loop). Getting out of this insanity loop is vital. As Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again,but expecting different results. Sometimes, You have to be innovative and take charge of life from a better vantage point. You must strive to take a conscious effort to harness your potential, get trained and practice to be better and have a strong conviction in the mastery.
In our lives,often many times we get confronted to the possibility of failure, we either cherish or regret the choices we make at that moment. Being strong and creative enough to stay present is the key to go with the unknown, rather than to choose known hell by default.
My version of exit door was wayfaring seven Indian states in self-exile, I had to keep away from the luxuries of internet, mobile phone or a hotel food. I had to respect the deal of dollar a day budgeting for a month of wayfaring. Though it was my first time It was fun and heroic for the first week; however, second week’s hard struggle made me wonder what and why am I into it with no particular reason.
Being timid was not a choice, so I had to find courage and embrace resilience, persistence, and self-belief which I had been lacking for longtime. Even though being strong, I felt low for no particular reason, my mind talking me out to end this madness and go back to my comfort loop. The little man within got stronger as I got weaker due to two weeks of hard grind. I got turned away from myself, as there was no short term gratification, no matter how badly I crashed and burned, I always felt to recover strength to keep on going the next day, one step at a time by working upon long term goal, to complete wayfaring till the end of week four.
Since coming back home, that mindset has stayed with me and reflects into way I confront life.
Refueling determination, building discipline and true audacity is very helpful in life especially as an entrepreneur. Sometimes life can be demoralizing, but if you are able to build this habit of deciding to take a massive action, just for no particular reason, then its effortless to stand for something important and worthy. You can shrug-off any amount of failure or rejection, the world is yours and sky really is the limit.
The truth is that there’s no easy way to develop this strong habit except by failing and failing a lot. The Nike brand coined “Just do it”; however, that’s not the best way of learning upon self expense, but atleast you’ll learn from your experience and build up your character to go all out wayfaring again just for the sake of it
This post originally appeared on oneup.in
Shaik Waseem is Entrepreneurial Educator and start-up influencer. He is on a mission to promote academia to be ICE(Innovative Creative Entrepreneurial). He has been co-founder and managing partner for multiple companies that are run under investment group members listed by Forbes middle east as top 100 Indian leaders in U.A.E.