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I’m pretty deep into a mid-life crisis at the moment and it feels similar but different from my quarter-life crisis.
My quarter-life crisis began after nearly a decade of travel. I had left when I was 19 with my best friend, armed with fresh faces and a one-way ticket. The feeling of that first trip has never left me and experiencing different cultures changed the way I viewed the world and I believe (hope) it made me a better person.
My crises are consistent and always revolve around Travel, no wishy-washy crises for me.
My quarter-life one began when I was tired of travelling with what I believed was no purpose. I had worked and lived in multiple countries, from bartending in Thailand to playing American football in Europe and everything in between. I was feeling restless from my restlessness and didn’t want to go back to Canada and get a normal job, but I also didn’t want to just travel for the sake of travel.
During this period, my parents and sister met me in India and we travelled as a family for about a month. My parents found ways to give back while we were travelling the country and this gave me an idea. I would go home to Canada and sell my photographs and see if I could raise some money to do some charity work.
Long story short, it worked and I raised about $4,000 which was enough to begin my non-profit. I was excited and re-invigorated, I had a purpose and it felt good.
My short work trips back to Canada always left me feeling at odds with my life though. My friends all had lives that seemed so far removed from mine. They were buying houses, having kids, starting careers and I felt behind in life. I felt like no one really took me seriously, I was just a traveller with no plans.
“At home, people put you into the box that they know you from. It’s not their fault but it can often be hard to re-invent yourself. I know it’s probably my perception or lack of self-confidence but that’s how I felt.”
Travel was the ultimate re-set. Everyone you met was brand new and had no preconceived notion of who you were or who you were supposed to be. I didn’t want to hide who I was but there was also something so exciting about a fresh start.
I often wondered if travel was just an escape or just a prolonging of starting a real life.
My parents were incredibly supportive. My dad told me to go and see the world and that if/when I decided to come back, that I would be surprised just how quickly one can catch up to “normal life”.
Fast forward 5 years and my next crisis had begun, I was tired of living in India. I had accomplished alot and had unbelievable travel experiences and was able to really make an impact on a community in Mumbai.
“I had accidentally fallen in love with my future wife, and long distance wasn’t going to work.”
I knew to make this relationship work that a long stint in Canada was on the horizon and that the next adventure was seeing if a normal life was possible.
Fast forward a decade and I guess I have caught up. I have started and sold a business, bought and sold properties and am now firmly entrenched in a career earning more money than I ever thought I was capable of. I have a beautiful home in a great neighbourhood, a beautiful daughter and nice cars in the driveway.
I’m also deeply unsatisfied by this.
I have started to make travel a priority again and each year my wife and daughter and I leave for 4 weeks. I look forward to these trips and they consume all 11 months of the year before we go. I get lost in the research of it and annoy my girls constantly, so much that they don’t want to talk about it anymore.
These trips are incredibly special and each year has been better than the last and spending this uninterrupted month with my daughter and introducing her to new places has become so important to me.
The problem I have, is with every trip’s end I become more dissatisfied with the life we have built back home. What an ungrateful prick I feel like. I know we have a good life and are incredibly fortunate.
For 11 months a year I chase the all-mighty dollar. My job revolves around money and it’s an integral part of every deal I’m involved in. For the first 30 + years of my life, money wasn’t the focus. That changes with children and now I want to ensure that my wife daughter will have everything they need, but I’m worried at what expense that will come.
“For the first seven years of my daughters life, I have worked long hours to build this “normal” and privileged life. I’m not unhappy but I’m not satisfied.”
I feel like I work for 11 months to live for 1 month. The crazy thing is I don’t even hate my job but its the money that keeps me doing it. Its not fair to my family either and I’m trying to figure out how to balance all of this, to be present and engaged.
I get easily obsessed with things and this can be good and bad. When we came home in January of this year from a trip to New Zealand, I knew that I had to figure something out. How do I change our lives and make it so we have more time together and more time to explore the world. In this ever changing world it seems crazy to me to not have a way to make an income online.
So we created Xplorists and I don’t even know what it is yet and I’m pretty sure thats a terrible way to start a business. But sometimes you just have to start, so thats what we’re doing.
Xplorists combines the things that I love with travel and the people that make it so interesting.
I have no idea how the business side of this website will actually work and some days (every other day currently) I think its a waste of time. But then I remember that crippling self-doubt is an integral part of any new business or adventure. I had this feeling when I opened my first business when I sold the business when I started my new “career”.
There is no greater hater than your own mind sometimes.
In talking with people here at home, I don’t think I’m alone in these feelings either.
I think a lot of us are unsatisfied more so than ever and I don’t know why that is. The pandemic, the economy, the moon cycle, I feel like we all want something different.
My current state of mind is that you can’t change something if you don’t start and for me, Xplorist is the start of that change.
I just have to figure out what that means…
So for everyone out there, that is not satisfied, I hope you find a way to make that first step towards something that will elicit the change you are looking for.