Quitting My Job to Travel the World and Write

‘You love writing…. so why aren’t you a writer?’  This was question I had asked myself hundreds, if not thousands of times over the years.  My answers were weak excuses.

‘People will think you’re egotistical; if you write a blog someone from your past will write something damaging on it; your limited knowledge of IT means you can’t run a blog; no-one is going to read anything you have to say; who the hell do you think you are?’

My fears completely paralyzed me from writing for over 12 years.  During high school I loved expressing myself though poetry and adored my English assignments. In fact, my favourite assignment was an essay for geography about goat farming, but that is a whole other story.  Poetry provided me with an escape from my insecurities and teenage angst.

I don’t know when I first started writing but I remember clearly when I needed to write.  Becoming a teenager was painful.  It was my escape.  I wrote on scrap paper, in notebooks and even on tissues.  I filled pages with my feelings but then burnt them so that nobody would read my pained words.

I joined the army and was transformed into a solider.

I wasn’t an outstanding student and although I loved reading and doing assignments for English class, I never got As.  Believing I wasn’t intelligent, I left school and stopped writing.  I hadn’t scored well enough to attend university so after being lost for 12 months, I joined the army and was transformed into a solider.

After a tour in Iraq, I started studying.  I loved researching and writing essays.  I loved poring over information and formatting it into my opinion.  I realized that questioning my intelligence during high school had been unnecessary.  On assignments, I often received high distinctions.  I felt joy in my writing again.

For a little while, this style of writing filled the void inside me with my passion for writing.  But as I commenced a new career path, I stopped writing again and just strived to do the best I could in the corporate world.

However, my passion was still there and my little brother’s words echoed in my ears louder each day.  One afternoon he told me I should write my life story.  He said, “Your life is anything but boring. Women need to know they can come out of bad times and go on to have magical lives like yours.”

Those horrible fears still plagued my thoughts but while in a four-hour meditation session in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, a new thought hit me even harder: ‘What others think of your writing is none of your business–your business is to write!’

Those horrible fears still plagued my thoughts but while in a four-hour meditation session in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, a new thought hit me even harder: ‘What others think of your writing is none of your business–your business is to write!’

Shortly afterwards, I started a WordPress blog and slowly started to write.  Sometimes it was easier to write.  When my life was okay, I could write.  When it was bad, I didn’t write.  When it was completely falling apart, I wrote.  I still had no consistency in my writing.

I left an unfulfilling career to travel and write in May 2013.  A few months later after a personal tragedy, I finally gave myself permission to write.  The words now flow deep from within my heart, and I finally stopped being afraid to say, “I am a writer.”  The day I gave myself that permission, serendipitously I found this quote by Alan Wilson Watts:

“Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves.

Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone.

Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.”

The quote says it all!

I am now writing on a daily basis.  I feel alive, free and passionate–whether I am writing words for my first book about my Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, a blog post or research notes about any number of the amazing topics that intrigue me.

For years, all the reasons I had told myself not to write had simply been excuses driven by fear.  I am a writer and in hiding that side of myself I had done nothing to benefit the world or myself.

I am a writer.  It is who I am, not just what I do!

Quitting My Job to Travel the World and Write

Related Reading

• 7 Things I Learned on the Camino de Santiago
• 3 Stunning Regions in Northern Spain
• Pregnant and Still Traveling Like I’m 18
• Quitting My Job to Travel the World and Write

Have you quit your job to travel the worlds and write? How’s it going? Email us at editor@pinkpangea.com for information about sharing your experience and advice with the Pink Pangea community. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Robyn Caddell is a freelance writer and life coach currently based out of her backpack.  She is studying the Success Principles and Free Range Human strategies. Robyn is passionate about living a spiritual and conscious life while helping others achieve their potential.  Join Robyn’s community on twitter: @sologirlrobyn and Instagram: aussiebutterfly76 and Facebook: Aussie Butterfly: World Dreamings.  For more visit aussiebutterfly.com.

 

Quitting My Job to Travel the World and Write photo credit: unsplash.com and Robyn Cadell.