a story about life; 3,5 years of travelling the world

Few months ago, for my 3th anniversary of my long trip, I wrote an essay and shared it with some friends. Few days later I realised, that I didn´t write for anybody else than for myself: one more time life had brought a very big challenge into my life just as I was about to believe I was there, where I wanted to be ....

Although this story was written by myself for myself, through sharing that with my friends I got lots of comments and feedback from those who read it, that this lines have helped them to realise something for their own lives. Today, after recovering from an other big challenge and realising that I was just about to give up everything I have been working through for such a long time, I decided to complete this story and share it with the world; this is a story about life ....

to whom, who might read that ...

On April 29th 2014 I have started my big Trip around. I did not have a clue that was gonna turn into such a long trip. Planed were a two months trip on the east coast Australia´s and six weeks of travelling around south east Asia, specially Bali. I have paid lots of money to get everything organised exactly the way I thought I was gonna make this trip; well that was the first lesson I had to learn during this trip: Never plan too far for your life as life can change very quick ...

The idea of this journey was born out of a very ugly situation, to say the least:
I was in a separation, which had gone for 1,5 years off and on, we could neither with each other nor without! None of us could let it go. I had to ….
The relationship itself had been an other 5 years of going through the hell. But after 5 years of living together with a person with lots of personal problems I was so fragile, that I broke in thousand small pieces after breaking up. My life was based on; anorexia, depression, alcohol, cigarette, party and … I suffered in silent pretending to be fine and no one knew what was going on inside me …
I was studying physics. I tried to concentrate on my study. I finished my final essay which caused me three more months of depression and going through the hell but I made it. I singed into my final exams and said to myself that that was gonna help me to get out of sadness. But it didn´t work out….
on February 6th 2014 I had an oral exam, the last one before I was gonna be done with my study and get ready for the final exams. I learned a lot, but …. As I entered the room I could not talk. I am a very talk active person, but on this day I could not say a word as much as I tried! I failed ...
I could not understand what was wrong with me, I had never failed through an exam and yet, that one was just an easy one! That brought more sadness, depression and alcohol into my life. I didn´t leave the house for days, I drunk and cried days and nights wondering why I did fail in my relationships as in my study. Nothing seemed to work out for me! Long story short ….
I passed the exam 2 month later wit A+ but I decided to sing out for Summer semester and wait one more semester before I do my final exams hoping I would find a way to be fine again. I knew that I had to leave! I knew that I needed distance to my old life in order to become clear and I knew that I had to learn English. I started to look for a place to go in order to learn English: USA, UK, Malta …. as suddenly a picture appeared in my imagination and I knew where I was meant to go. That was the red Rock in the Heart of Australia: Uluru! I would never have thought about going to Australia, but the message came very clear. I called my dad and told him about my idea he said I was mad! Australia was too far away! But that didn´t matter! Nothing did matter any more! I knew that I was gonna do it anyway.

I remember myself sitting in the plane 3,5 years ago on 29th of April and writing in my journal:
“[...] I am afraid of the unknown and I feel ashamed about my English. [...] But I know that faith and love are stronger than everything else in the world and I know that I will success.”. I did not know any body in Australia nor had I travelled alone before in this way and my English ….? A disaster! I could not say even one sentence in English! I knew that was not gonna be easy but it doesn´t have to!

As I arrived at the airport in Sydney I knew straight away, that I was gonna stay a year. People said that was mad, I had to go back and do my exams. But again that didn´t matter, cuz I knew that my exams would not run away from me while this opportunity was given to me just once and I did not want to miss it. I bought myself a camper and started to travel criss cross around down under and I loved it. That turned into the most amazing time of my life.

After 6 months of travelling I arrived in a small unknown town “Broome” north west of Australia. I was on my way to Perth and was gonna stay in Broome just for 2 or 3 days to wash the red dirt of outback in the beautiful turquoises ocean …. But one more time the life had made an other decision for me …. Things came together a way that I ended up not leaving Broome at all. I needed a job. That was wet season and there were not many jobs offering, my English was still not good enough to work with people it wasn´t easy for me to find a job anyway. After weeks of looking for a job and not finding anything I decided to leave Broome and was a bit sad about this decision. On the day as I was gonna leave a miracle happened into my life. Some one offered me a job out of the blue, as a carer! I had never been a carer in my life before! I did not have a clue what I had to do but I said to myself that I was gonna learn it. That way I was allowed to work with one of the most amazing and loving people I have ever met in my life. He is a paralysed man sitting in a wheelchair, with a heart as big as the ocean. That wasn´t easy at all. Not the work itself, I learned that one very quick. But it wasn´t easy to look at a person being so helpless in his everyday life. That broke my heart for days and days. I cried every night before going to sleep. I could not understand the fate nor the world. Why should such a lovely person have such a fate?
This job was not there to bring money into my life, as I soon realised, this job was there to remind me on my life purposes. To remind me that I am on this world for a reason and there is a purpose in everyday of my life: to live!
We became very close friends very soon and he told me his story: he used to be a traveller just like me. Travelling the world for months and months, being sporty, running marathons, being a gym teacher … “When I look at you I remember my old days. I was like you, a free soul, a traveller full of Energy! I could not sit around doing nothing.” he told me one day. He used to be a young energetic man until one day …. 30 years ago he had an accident, he didn´t wear any security belt, the car turned up side down, the other 2 passengers survived without any injury and he ended up in a wheelchair. One night after he told me his heartbreaking story, I was lying in my hammock in my beautiful peaceful villa at his resort reading my book, as I suddenly saw my feet. I put my book to the side and looked at my feet it was as if I would see them for the first time, I moved my feet, got up, started to walk, run and jump: “OMG! I can move my feet! He can´t!” I realised and started to cry. That was the first time in my life as I recognised something very important, yet having been taken as granted in my life: the value of my feet and my healthy body! I remembered my own accident which I had with a friend on the beach just few weeks before I met Andy. I didn´t wear any security belt just like him, our car ended up being up side down as well and I was stuck in the car. I remembered the moment as the accident was just about to happen and I remembered that I knew that everything what was gonna happen from this moment on was out of my control! After remembering this scenery I knew that I didn´t meet Andy coincidently! Andy reminded me that the person sitting in the wheelchair could have been me myself. I knew that Andy was a sing telling me, that I got a new chance to change my life to a better one and I had to be grateful for this chance and I realised that I didn´t have to go back to Germany any more! Life can change very quick and I knew that I did not want to waste my time doing something I didn´t like to do and being somewhere I didn´t want to be …. I did not have a clue, what I was gonna do, but I knew that I didn´t need to go back to my old life. And again no one could believe that I was gonna give up my study which I had invested years and years of my life into, which was meant to bring money and security into my life. “You are mad! You are not gonna give that up! You have got just 4 exams to go! Come back finish that and do what ever you want!” they said, but I knew that I didn´t need a piece of paper to improve my knowledge it was not worth it my time!

It has been a long trip and a long story with lots of ups and downs which is going to end. I had lots of goals for this trip which I mostly achieved and I had one aim: I promised to myself that I was not gonna stop travelling until I find to myself. Today three years later I realise that I have achieved my aim as well! It´s been a long way to go but I made it. I still don´t know where I am gonna be in one month but I know where ever I will be, there will be my new home and I will be fine there.
I am a native of Iran, but my homeland is not Iran, my homeland has gone lost as I was born. Since than I have been looking for my home: for that one place on this earth to settle down. Today I realised, that I was blind that I have been wasting my time looking for this one place! Home as a place on the earth is nothing but an illusion. Home is not a place on the earth, home is where your heart is. If you are looking for your home, go and find your heart. “That is very easy, my heart is where I am.” you may think. But that is not true! The truth is, that we are, where our heart is, yet our heart is not always where we are. Our heart is, where our desires and wishes are and where our wishes and desires are is our every home. So I understood, that in order to find my home, I had to listen to my heart and follow my dreams. Yet I had to learn, that my dreams are my dreams and they may be different to other people´s dreams or to the collective dream. But does that matter? If we want to find that one home, we have to be brave. Brave enough to face ourselves. Brave enough to face our fears and our weakness, brave enough to say: “I am not perfect but that is not my purpose to be.”
“when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” says King Melchizedek to the shepherd in the book “The Alchemist” from Paulo Coelho. “is that true?” I have been asking myself since I can remember.
During my travel around the world, just as during the years of my journey through the life, I have experienced that quite often, that every time I would recover from a life challenge and believe to be the master of my life again, something would happen and cast me down to the every ground. It seemed to me as life would have put the seed of a desire in my heart which I could never reach. “could life be so cruel to bring me to that one beautiful river of my desires and take me away just before I am able to get it? Would God show me that crystal clear water to let me know that there is there somewhere, but to not allow me to drink from its water? Why would God do that?” I have been wondering for long time, over and over, every time I failed and lied on the ground again. A few days ago I have found the answer of this question in one of Paulo Coelho´s books: “The fifth mountains”:

“Every human being at some time had tragedy enter his life. At that moment, God challenged one to confront with Him and to answer His question: ´Why dost thou cling fast to an existence so short and filled with suffering? What is the meaning of thy straggle?´
The man who did not know how to answer this question would resign himself, while another, one who sought a meaning to existence, feeling that God had been unjust, would challenge his own destiny. It was at this moment that fire of a different type descended from the heaven – not the fire that kills but the kind that tears down ancient walls and imparts to each human being his true possibilities. Cowards never allow their hearts to blaze with this fire; all they desire is for the changed situation to quickly return to what it was before, so they can go on living their lives and thinking in their customary way. The brave, however, set afire that which was old and, even at the cost of great internal suffering, abandon everything, including God, and continue onward. The brave are always stubborn. From heaven God smiles contentedly, for it was this that He desired, that each person takes into his hands the responsibility for his own life. For. In the final analysis, He had given his children the greatest of all gifts: the capacity to choose and determine their acts. Only those with the sacred flame in their hearts had the courage to confront Him. And they alone knew the path back to His love, for they understood that tragedy was not punishment but challenge.”

and the way life proves our will ….

On my long journey to my home and to myself I found out, that the only thing which keeps us away from our dreams, are we ourselves. We are our biggest enemy and no one else! Most of the people never achieve their dreams because they could not see how close they were as they gave up! They forget that the longest night of the year always arrives just before the days start to become longer, and that the darkest moment of night always appears just before dawn. They fail the last exam of life just before they could see the sun rising in their lives. Most people never reach their desires because they are afraid. They are afraid of happiness, because they believe that they didn´t deserve that. Life is not always set to be easy for a good reason: life is not for cowards, the weak shall lose the battle while the strong one will survive. This is the cycle of life. We are not talking about the physical strength. A body can be as strong as it wants to, the moment we give up on our dreams and desires our soul will die. From that moment on the body might still be alive wondering through life but there is no soul existing in this body any more ….

If I have learned one thing during this 3,5 years that was “trust”! To trust into my inner voice, to trust in life and to trust that everything is gonna be fine at the end, even if it doesn´t look like that right now! The most painful situations sometimes lead us to the most beautiful experiences in life.
If you are sitting somewhere being heart broken and sad or unhappy with your life, reading this lines right now, break it up and get out of that, doesn´t matter what that is! Quite it, if it doesn´t serve you or make you happy. Don´t wait until somebody comes and takes your hand! That might never happen. Do it yourself. After all, life is all about making the right decisions at the right time. Don´t ask any body which way to go, you are the only one who knows the way. It is your life and its map is hidden into your heart! It is not gonna be easy but it is possible ….

All the best