What If I’ve Already Reached The High Point of My Life?
Is it all downhill from here? Or will things get better?
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This is a question I’ve been asking myself for the past couple of days. Has my life peaked? Have I experienced the best parts of my life already?
It might seem like a strange question to ask when you’re only 31, but the question has nestled itself in my mind and refuses to go away. The more I think about it, the more I start to wonder whether my best years are behind me.
To understand why I feel this way, it’s best to reflect on what I did previously. Once I graduated from university, I spent a year working in a betting shop. A job I wasn’t fond of and couldn’t wait to quit.
The day I did was euphoric. It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. The good aspect of the job was it allowed me to save up a lot of money for something I’d wanted to do for as long as I could remember.
Live in Australia.
While it would only be for a year, it was an experience I yearned for forever since I set my eyes on Uluru (Ayers Rock) in an encyclopedia. I’d been enchanted with the land down under from then on.
Once I got there, my mind was blown. Not only was it as good as I thought it would be, it was better. The warm weather, the luxurious golden beaches, the freedom to go wherever I wanted. It was intoxicating.
Coming from the wet and windy north of England, it was like I’d discovered paradise! Setting myself up in cities like Adelaide, Brisbane, and Melbourne I made a fantastic bunch of friends and had one of the best years of my life.
It’s hard to understand how visceral the experience of bonding with people on your travels is unless you’ve travelled yourself. The space of time in which you get to know someone is shortened. The process is on steroids. You get to know and bond with people much quicker than you would in normal circumstances.
So much so you come to know them intimately in a matter of weeks and even days in some cases. While this is great for travelling, friendships are much easier to forge, it can be hard when the time comes to inevitably, say goodbye.