Any bold move, big change or great adventure requires a sacrifice of some kind. This is true in business, life and travel. It’s simple economics – every choice you make has an opportunity cost. Every dollar you spend on a plane ticket is a dollar you can’t spend somewhere else. And the bigger the challenge, the greater the risk… but of course the bigger the reward can be.
Today I found myself sat pondering what we have missed by taking a leap, packing up and moving to Japan for six months.
What we left behind:
* Sofa
* TV
* Mobile phones
* Car
* My man’s salary
* Space (we swapped a three storey home with a garden for a tiny two room apartment with a concrete balcony at the back of a bakery – oh what glamour!)
What we missed:
* The birth of four babies to close friends
* Several birthdays and my niece’s first day at school
What we gained:
* Lightness, both physically (I have lost over 14 lbs since arriving here!) and emotionally (no stress, hardly any ‘stuff’ to weigh us down)
* Time, and a fluidity in our days – my man goes to school every weekday afternoon, but everything else is flexible
* Two rickety bicycles and a shelf full of books (they don’t count as ‘stuff’!)
* A sackful of memories
* A shelf of filled sketchbooks and about 10,000 photos
* A closeness that can only come with six months of living in each other’s pockets, sharing unusual experiences every single day
* A new energy from slowing down, eating better and getting out in the sun more
* Clarity on what we want to do with our life together, and what we don’t
* A realisation that we want to live near the sea one day
* An addiction to caramel frappucinos and watermelon ice lollies
* A new appreciation for home that can only come from being away
So was it worth it? Absolutely!
