I Thought Working Harder Would Create the Life I Wanted

Growing up, I was taught what many of us are taught: work hard, be responsible, and success will follow. So that's exactly what I did. After high school, I spent years working 70 hour weeks. I convinced myself that if I just worked harder, sacrificed more, and pushed through the exhaustion, eventually I'd reach a point where I could finally enjoy my life.

But somewhere along the way, I started to question what I was actually working toward. Was I building a life I genuinely wanted, or was I just existing?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had somehow tied my worth to productivity. I believed that constantly hustling made me responsible, ambitious, successful, worthy. But I don't think our value comes from how much we're willing to sacrifice ourselves.

Time is the one thing we can never get back. Once it's gone, it's gone. That realization became impossible to ignore after my cancer scare. For the first time, I had to confront how uncertain life really is. Suddenly, all the things I was planning to do "someday" felt a lot more urgent, and I was no longer comfortable with the reality that I was just existing in survival mode. I deserved more than that - we all do.

That's when I started asking a different question: If my time is limited, how do I actually want to spend it? For me, that question eventually led to travel. Not because travel solves everything, but because it reminded me that life can look different than the path we've always been told to follow. That there isn't one right way to live. There isn't one right career path. There isn't one right timeline. And there certainly isn't one right way to see the world.

Travel may not be possible for everyone in the same way, but there are often more options than we realize. Sometimes it's saving for months. Sometimes it's taking shorter trips. Sometimes it's finding creative ways to work remotely or travel more affordably.

The important thing isn't doing it exactly as someone else did.

It's giving yourself permission to imagine a different possibility, and taking the steps to make it a reality.