C. Why try to plan your life???

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Quote: “I wish I had  courage to live a life true to myself, not a life others expected of me.” Bronny Ware, Australian author, songwriter & motivational speaker aka deathbed regrets writings.

Why try to ‘design’ or control your life’s path, Why ‘plan’ life?

9 Life Lessons - Tim Minchin UWA Address (comedy, but wise). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoEezZD71sc

We read books & watch movies without knowing how each character will end up. Why not do the same for ourselves? Why not just let it unfold naturally?  You know, ‘Go with the flow.’

At 84, I can’t change my past. You, OTOH, have almost complete control over how you might want to try to plan/design the rest of your life.

Why do we plan/consider anything?

Why plan a night out, college & career, spouse & children, or foreign travel, if not to attempt to anticipate & plan a successful future? To try to ensure that we maximize the pleasure and benefit of this short time span called life.

Anecdote: Foreign Travel Itineraries: when I first started foreign travel 25 years ago, I made a simple itinerary of countries, cities, sites & experiences that I wanted to visit including simple transport, hostels. & sites notes.          
                                                  Winging it from there.

Over several trips, I realized I had wasted a lot of travel time researching & flailing about lost ... trying to find sites. Even worse, later I learned I had missed many sites I would like to have seen, but never would because I failed pre-trip research AND had too little time & too many places yet to visit.

Within 3 to 5 years, I began developing highly detailed itineraries, including all transport, a prioritized hostel list for each town, each site's details, & miscellaneous relevant notes. [pplk: Resources: Itineraries]

Anecdote:  Mounds Culture self-guided van tour:  I researched & planned a 1 month+ itinerary that included dozens of ignored & well-known Mound People's sites, Civil War Battlefields & Civil War era plantation homes generally along the Mississippi River Basin.

In SUM, I estimate I researched 1 month for every month I traveled.

Somebody might consider this obsessive yet it made my trips predictable & fluid without wasting valuable travel time researching on the run while traveling.

Flexibility was built in: my itineraries also included 1 free day for every 7 travel days AND each site visit's time on site was generously over-estimated.

Anecdote: Tangiers, Morocco: after 36 days trekking Camino de Santiago in northern Spain, I began 1½ month's travel thru Portugal & S Spain. In Madrid, I realized I was too far ahead of my itinerary, so I booked a train to Tarifa, SW Spain & ferried over to Tangiers, Morocco for 3 days, then, returned to Madrid to continue my travels ... & I still saw & did everything in Portugal & Spain I pre-planned.

I often estimated at the end of each trip that I completed 95% or more of everything I wanted to see, but despite my extensive pre-trip itinerary, I kept discovering in the media ...  sites and experiences I never knew about and would've wanted to visit and could have.

Anecdote: Peru Nazca figures: just recently I learned about dozens if not hundreds of additional figures recently discovered at the Nazaca Lines site. Moments ago I Grok'd se impressive sites. Oh well.

Most lives are a mix of successes & failures: foreseeable/unforeseen, permanent/recoverable, good/bad, easy/challenging. Success is never guaranteed, multiple failed attempts are most probable. 

Yet, constantly anticipating & planning your life’s choices is the most likely way to achieve success during your life and a sense of fulfillment & satisfaction at its end; …a life that will satisfy you when you are looking backward at my age.

There are no guarantees, of course, but the more we contemplate a future, plan & try to direct our plan the higher the probability more success than failure will produce ..... a ‘life well lived.” 

Life stages:

Most humans go through what some psychologists call 'life  stages.' Most commonly they are youths (1 to 10), teens (12 to 18), young adults (19 to 23), middle-aged adults & e) older (65+). 

In our pre-teen & teen stages, our life is mainly controlled by others -- parents, neighbors, Boy Scouts, teachers, and peers - until we somewhat belligerently in our early teens and begin to demand our own decision-making rights. 

Yet, these ‘controlled’ years can dramatically influence & dictate our perception of ourselves, and our future.

After 18, we may legally take control except that others may also influence how we think and what we do.

The novel & movie characters, as well as many humans around us, are products of their good & bad decisions & people who influenced them.

Anecdote: 1 mo Mexican solo van-trip becomes 3 months: Fearing Mexico travel for years, I begin a 1 mo solo independent van tour on a big loop from Agua Prieta to Chihuahua, west to Gulf of California, south a bit, then, due east to Mexico City and back to US. 

But, alas, parked on tiny San Franciso village’s ocean-side beach 30mi north of Puerto Vallarta luxuriating in the balmy solitude of my little RV Van far from MY America, I heard a deep American voice from behind my van say, "What part of Wyoming are you from?”      … and I thought I had escaped …. 😀

Evan Lane, an American & a most accomplished SIT traveler, spent weeks each year in San Francisco with friends. That night’s dinner with his friends, just before I would turn east to Mexico City, he challenged me to “just keep driving south thru Guatemala, Belize, into Yucatán, Mexico.” 

Early next morning I arrived at ‘the’ intersection, thought of his challenge, looked briefly east toward Mexico City… then pushed straight thru a stop sign driving south for 3 mo's along Mexico’s Coast, thru Guatemala & Belize into southern Mexico’s Yucatan & back to US’s Texas. 

Often decisions are made in the heat of emotion (marry an alcoholic?), panic or convenience or, occasionally, those that are well thought out.

Critically, our earliest decisions & experiences, planned or not, may strongly determine our life’s path. Consider the ‘life-impact’ of a good/bad parent, or being High School President, Eagle Boy Scout, or straight A’s sciences student, rebuilding an entire auto engine yourself, raising your siblings in a motherless home, a high school pregnancy, or forever ‘student loan’ debt? 

The 'lucky' who always knew their path - horse trainers, doctors, etc. - compared with those of us who struggled to fulfill survival’s immediate needs — food, clothing & a place to sleep, etc.   

     Planning life is not an unrealistic option. Yet the apparent failure of many to do so lies all around us: lives un-directed, misdirected, hollow & UN-fulfilling.

Many, if not most, of us are not fortunate enough to have had a future vision. My only goal out of college was to survive; eat, drink and sleep.

Life is a one-shot deal, no sequel, no second chance, no reincarnation.  “You get what you got, nothing more.”

Like a cereal bowl, we can fill it up with cow manure or chocolate syrup-covered chocolate ice cream. Each life has the potential to be a mix of manure or chocolate ice cream.

     Pondering & planning your life’s choices in advance including travel is the only way you are likely to
achieve success and satisfaction at the end of your life;    

 …a life that will please you the most when you are looking backward at my age.

Remember that your life may be similar to others, but it is also unique compared to others; as fulfilling as you make it. .....

D. Why I wrote my bio for me?

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    1. To flatter my ego? Why, who would really care? Few have cared before. I am not crying, just sayin’.😇

Quote: When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do, well, that's Memoirs. Will Rodgers (19th C comedian)

   2. to relive & enjoy my travels by editing my 25+ years of videos. 

I made my life’s choices over 5-6 decades. I have done all the travel I can do (cancer). I don’t intend to monetize my blog thru sponsors & advertisers because I don’t need the money.

“You only need to get rich once.” Jim Cramer, stock guru.  I did."

  3. to give my YouTube channel viewers an insight into the motivations of my more than 1400 short videos from all over the world.

E. Why for you? 

My current goal for you is twofold: 

    1) sharing my travel knowledge & experiences thru my blog & YouTube videos, 

    2) providing those who may not or can not travel with an authentic vicarious travel experience thru my website & YouTube Channel. 

Anecdote; Bill Haine's 'armchair' travel: Years ago I would edit a trip video & copy it to a DVD for my friend Bill because he once said, " I love your videos, Scott because they are only way I will ever travel abroad."

E. Why did I write my bio for you?

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1. To give you the license to explore my intimate thoughts, experiences, failures & successes & opportunities of my life in case they can help you better understand your past, and anticipate your future, particularly regarding solo independent travel (SIT).

You’ll see my challenges, successes, failures, catastrophes & outcomes.

    Looking backward from my 60 & 70s obsession with travel, why didn't I  START SIT traveling 20 years earlier?

2. My BIO  may prompt you to evaluate MY fundamental life choices & the questions I did, did not, or should have asked myself. 

Anecdote: Menial 'bachelor degree' jobs:
     1^st job: I kept selling Cutco knives door-to-door sleeping
                on the office floor, but income was too unpredictable.
     2^nd Job: In a doughnut shop, making early morning doughnuts
                & delivering them.  Again, sleeping on the storeroom floor. 

I had ABSOLUTLY NO CLUE what jobs might follow college.

3. Probe MY life’s reasoning, emotions, and levels of confidence & self-worth during my life’s stages.

4. Now, in the safety & privacy of your mind evaluate & test what your emotions, self-worth, confidence, emotional courage, initiative & issue solutions & limits might have been (or will be) in similar circumstances.      

       What might you have done better or differently?

You may be alarmed at my complete ignorance of what my life after college would be.  What value all that 'education', I had 'no clue!!' 

5) These deeper insights may prompt or inspire a new vision for the 'balance of your life.'     What will it be like?

At 84, I can’t alter my past. But, you, have almost complete control over how you might want to try to plan/design the rest of your life.

If you always wanted to be a Doctor, you already know the route. BUT, what if you have no idea what you want out of life.

Most default to marriage & children, BUT, 'Why?'AND .... before or after college or career's stability? 

6) Should you try to plan your life to some degree? 

Why else do we go to college, focus on a career, and develop sports or hobby skills, if not to somehow foresee & plan our future’s time.

At 60 I didn't really plan to spend the next two decades, obsessively traveling. BUT once I started doing 1 trip/year & then 2/year and ... making them longer ... I was obsessed with # of countries I STILL wanted to 'see.'