This year I was drunk in eight different countries. Not the most elegant statistic, still noteworthy, I thought.
I remember cannonballing into the sea in West Sweden at 5 in the morning. I remember playing flunky ball in the middle of the night in Aarhus with two girls from Texas.
I remember finding out that a quiet night out in Krakow means to Pilger from one pijalnia wodki to the next, and only to drink vodka shots.
I remember dancing with my friend in the rain in Barcelona in the middle of the day. I remember seeing showers of shooting stars in the Mecklenburgerische Seenplatte.
And, I remember drinking vino in Paris in the middle of the longest first date of my life (6 days).
Drinking port wine in Guimaraes with my friends in a villa will be a memory that I will keep with me.
It is Friday morning. I am having Natas for breakfast. Again. Natas are basically tiny pudding cakes from Portugal. I realise now that I am not only having Natas, but I am also having a good year.
As I am writing this, my brain feels like it was deep fried yesterday in a microwave. I hate hangovers.
My gang and I kicked it yesterday in Porto till 7 in the morning. I am horrible at finding an ending.
So, genius me lost all of my pals. It was about an hour to travel back to the village where our villa is.
Yesterday, my iPhone battery died and with it the address of the house where we are staying.
My sense of orientation is laughable.
So my ravaging night was rewarded with 4 hours of hiking through the mountains of Guimaraes without a second of sleep and without success. So, I went to a hospital asking them to charge my phone. After some bewildered, they asked me if I am ok. I said that I am not, but this is not why I am here.
After calling my friends from the hospital with my freshly charged phone, I finally managed to get a taxi to drive me home. Turns out, I was not even in the same district.
To find some learning in this mess, I stood in front of a psychological decision. What do I choose to give a f*ck about today?
Do I focus on the awesome night that I had, or do I focus on the hangover?
Travelling taught me that I am the editor of my life. That I can decide what moments to remember, and which to forget.
How Traveling Has Taught Me What To Give F*ck About
Travelling has also taught me what to give a f*ck about. I want to talk with you today about the power of focus.
Although we are not always in control of how things develop, we are all in control of what we focus on.
We are all in control of what we give a f*ck about, how we deal with the unchangeable. How we deal with the fact that there is no time machine yet, and that we have to accept things.
Psychological focus has been something that has fascinated me for years. A classical phenomenon from clinical psychology is, for example, that people with depression tend to focus more on the negative and on the things they cannot change.
For years, I had a superpower of seeing problems where there were none. Or in different words, I choose poorly what I gave a f*ck about.
While successful people, on the opposite, focus on what they can do to change the situation.
A fundamental difference in two groups who choose differently what they give a f*ck about.
It made me think about what group I would belong right now. So, I asked myself: In three years, what moments will I remember? If I would watch a movie of my last 5 years, what scenes will I edit out, and what will I leave in?
Is the scene that I am stressing out over right now, really that bad that it needs to be in my movie? Will it make the final cut?
This trip is teaching me that I need to do a better job of creating custom-made values for myself. Each and every one of my friends, of the people I met here in Portugal, have their own way of walking through life.
Every moment of travelling is teaching us something. Whether we like the lesson or not. From communicating without speaking the same language with locals to realising that even the wide world is not enough to escape from yourself.
And as I sit here, tanned, wrinkly as an old avocado, with little to no money, I realise that I am in charge. I decide what to give a f*ck about today.
And years from now, I will not remember me whining about a little headache, I will remember setting out into the world with my little orange backpack, my blog, and my dream.
As always, thank you for reading.
