I am practicing the ‘thoughts are things’ concept as explained in books like The Secret. I resented that book/ movie/ whatever it was but I really want to be financially successful the coming months. So for the first time in my life I have put an amount in my head (or actually two amounts, one for New York and one for Hong Kong) and I repeat it a couple of times per day. When I walked randomly into the local cathedral I even prayed for that wish to come true. Sometimes I feel fear of failure coming up and then I hope that this did not contaminate my intentions. Fingers crossed and work hard. I did promise God that I will do good things with the money and will serve my clients and participants to the best of my abilities.
A kindred Warrior
I just come back from climbing the volcano in the pic. Well.. climbing the volcano.. it was more from the parking place to the first stop and getting exhausted from that little distance. But I was at 4800 meters which is quite high. Now I am back at the hostel and open up my laptop to find out that I just received a donation from ‘a kindred warrior’. Just like that. Somebody who I didn’t even knew he existed reached out to me and gave me his support. It is hard to find words to express what it means to me.
But I will give it a shot.
It gives me hope. And it gives me strength. It gives me the feeling that everything is worth it.
Receiving teaching in the bus
I felt in a hurry this morning and the rush is slowly leaving my body. I am surrendering to the pace of the environment. I wanted to do a lot today, I wanted to quickly take a bus, drop my stuff at some hostel and do a four hour hike around the crater of another volcano before it gets cloudy, go back to the hostel, write a post and leave tomorrow to travel south again.
A part of me is still very western, very Dutch even. I remember from my first week of traveling, when I just arrived in Israel, that I learned that I can’t do as many things in a day as I was used to. I wanted to go to a city in the north of Israel, visit my grand parents grave, visit a couple I had met before and go back to Tel Aviv. The delay of my very first train of that day ruined that plan thoroughly and immediately.
Dancing on the equator
I am in Ecuador! Mountains surround me. Well, mountains have surrounded me for a while because even Cali was mountainy and the area where the shamans live even more. But this time it is a bit more serious, I think. Tomorrow I will go to a volcano that is 5500 meters high. That is high for a guy from The Netherlands!
I think that for the first time I feel like a backpacker, a traveler. Passing the one-year mark gave me a sense of freedom. The first year was about me challenging myself and I made it and simultaneously I lost everything that I found important. I have not much more to lose and not much more to prove. I feel pretty confident and free.