Thirty two minutes into my 27th birthday, at exactly 12:32 am, I committed to turning off the cruise control of my life. I was just about three years into a stable Corporate Job, I lived in one of the best cities in the world, I had a loving family and great friends. And rent control. And now I had a one-way ticket to Australia.
I quit my job a few weeks later, going through the motions of ditching my life in San Francisco for the unknown. It didn’t feel real, I kept double-checking my ticket, as if the small print would explain to me exactly why I was giving everything up: my apartment, belongings, and most importantly, my routine. Ok, Australia isn’t the most “difficult” place to move to, I realize this. They still speak English, albeit incredibly hard to understand at times, and have color coded money, which makes it like playing monopoly in real life. But the purpose of my trip had me scared. I was trying to get away from the rut of repetition I had dug myself into. My goal was to push my emotional comfort. To be vulnerable, build authentic relationships with people, and reconnect with what it means to be part of a community.
I called it, Project Open.
The beautiful thing about not having any expectations, is that nothing can go wrong. I found myself heading to the small beach-side town of Yamba. I was going to live with a friend who had just moved into a van and dedicated herself to changing the world, one of the most passionate and inspirational people I know. She was creating the life she wanted, completely detaching from the elements of success society tends to shove down our throat.
I had no idea how the living arrangement would work out, or exactly how I was going to be able to help her, but it sounded like a suitably drastic lifestyle change and the unknown excited me. Why I chose it I couldn’t really verbalize, but it felt right. Also, I was so caught up in wrapping up my life in the bay that I didn’t realize the magnitude of the unknown until I was actually boarding the plane. The rush of uncertainty finally came flooding in, but by then it was too late. I was off to Yamba to…figure life out.
Pushing Comfortable 