Thoughts on Hitchhiking

Ok, so I had another hitchhiking adventure yesterday, and while the thought is on my mind I’d like to reflect on my hitchhiking experiences as a nomad. First off, let’s talk about yesterday’s experience. I was out visiting a client, and I accidentally locked my keys in my car. So, the first feeling I had was of complete helplessness, but then I thought about how I could just hitchhike to my house to get my spare key.

So, I started going around the parking lot, and the second person I asked was able to give me a ride. He wasn’t going the whole way, but he dropped me off and I got another ride the rest of the way. I got my spare key, and then I tried to get a ride back to my car. This proved much more difficult than getting a ride to my house. Everyone that I approached said they weren’t going the direction I was headed. So, then I made up a sign on paper and held it out by the Freeway on-ramp. Nothing. I decided that I needed to go to another area with more people, so after walking to the nearby Smith’s, I tried again a few times. Still unsuccessful after 30 minutes of trying, I decided to give up.

It reminded me a lot of the feelings I had as a nomad. Now, the reason I wanted to hitchhike on my trip is because I thought it would be fun to meet new people. I wanted to maximize the amount of people I interacted with, so hitchhiking seemed perfect. Unfortunately, it was much harder to hitchhike in Arizona(and now in Vegas) than I had anticipated. I was so surprised at how scared people seemed when I would approach them as ask for a ride. I was wearing a black suit and tie yesterday, and a guy even mentioned how he felt a scared at the sight of me just standing around in my suit.

It made me realize that often, we keep ourselves from doing good because of our fear. There are many people that we could help that we don’t, because we are afraid to help. This was a thought that came very strong to me in Arizona that I hope to remember. I should never let my fear get in the way of me helping someone out who is in need.

Also, although the idea of hitchhiking is still very appealing to me, the necessity of hitchhiking no longer is. When I was hitchhiking in UT for two weeks, it wasn’t completely necessary. I still had a car that I could drive, but I wanted to make sure I could get around. Anyway, I wasn’t doing it out of necessity, and I knew that at any time I could go get my car. Well, when I really didn’t have the option of a car, I felt myself getting more frustrated with people’s lack of willingness to give me a ride. I was completely dependent on others, and so I was more emotionally involved in the process. I think hitchhiking is better when you are doing it merely for the fun of it, and not out of pure necessity.

Well, those were just some of the thoughts I had on hitchhiking from my trip and my experience the other day. I think if I ever want on another nomadic adventure, I’d want to live out of my car. I could still hitchhike and what-not, but it would take out the necessity of the act and in turn would make it more enjoyable. Anyway, just a thought…

Living the Dream?

While I was at work today, I overheard my boss use the expression, “living the dream”. This is an expression that I hear a lot, and I’m slightly confused at to what it’s supposed to mean. Most of the time, people say it in a somewhat sarcastic or facetious way. When somebody says it in that manner, it seems to me that they are saying that their life is less than interesting.

For example, you see a friend you haven’ t seen in a while, and they ask you what you have been doing. A common response in this scenario can be that you’re “just living the dream”. This response seems to be said when someone feels they don’t have anything too noteworthy to report. Now, I may be reading into this statement wrong, but that seems to be the underlying meaning of the statement. You know, they aren’t doing anything that exciting, just going to school, going to work, dating, blah, blah, blah.

It’s funny because I’ve heard this statement in conjunction with the lifestyle of a college grad that still lives in Provo. As I’ve tried to explain to people what I’ve been doing, my friends have sometimes pointed out that I’m just “living the dream”. Basically implying that I’m doing nothing with my life by still living in Provo.

So, why is “living the dream” not a good thing? Don’t all of us hope that we’ll go after and achieve our dreams? I think that most of us do. However, “the dream” is often associated with societal norms and expectations that we’ve been raised with all of our lives. So yes, “living the dream” should be a negative statement, because if we’re living “THE dream”, we’re not living our own.

My dream is not to graduate from college and go work for a big corporation in New York, Boston, or D.C. My dream is not to find a “career”, and work for somebody else for my entire life. My dream is not to go to medical school, law school, dental school, or get my MBA. My dream does not align with a lot of the normal, predictable, and expected post-graduation plans of college grads. So, when I say I’m “living the dream”, I’m doing just that. I’m not doing what I want to do, rather, I’m doing what I’ve been taught I should want to do.

That’s really why I’m going on this trip. Too many people settle for “living the dream”, because it just seems too risky or scary to go after what they really want. Even then, often times people have a hard time deciphering between what they really want and what they’ve been taught they should want. I kept quitting jobs without having any other plan, because I never wanted to just get comfortable and settle for life. I hear people all the time say that they don’t love their job, “but it pays the bills”. That, to me, is living the dream.

So, are you living the dream?

Potential Dangers?

When I tell people about my trip, I get a variety of different reactions. But, one common concern that people have is how safe it is to hitch hike and live with random people I don’t know that well. The most common stated dangers are: I could get raped, robbed, or killed. Well, I’m going to confront those specific dangers in this post.

First off, I want to direct you to a blog I found about a guy who documents his trip hitchhiking across america. Now, his blog is pretty interesting and he definitely has some interesting adventures. But, I’d like to quote him on this topic of dangers to be faced:

“They say hitchhiking is dangerous. Everyone said I’d get robbed, raped and killed. I paid no attention. I figured America’s paranoid, and hitchhiking is safe. You can’t have an adventure nowadays without someone saying you’ll get robbed, raped and killed.”

Now he goes on to say that he NEARLY got raped and killed, but that’s because he thought hanging out with an ex-convict would be good company to have. Anyway, I agree with him that people are pretty paranoid about the dangers that exist, and lots of the fears people have are completely irrational and ridiculous. So, let’s talk about them one by one.

Rape: Now, this is the most ridiculous fear of them all. It hardly even needs discussing. But, I’m pretty sure I can hold my own on this one. If I ever get into an awkward situation, I’ll use my Ninja skills. No worry.

Murder: This one cracks me up. It’s like people think there are mass murderers that just drive down the highway looking for people to kill just for the shear pleasure of it. Seriously? Maybe we need to stop watching so many movies. The only reason I would get killed is if somebody has a motive for doing it. I don’t have money. I don’t have wealthy parents. I’m not from some famous family. So, the only motive somebody might have is if I’m an eyewitness to something. I’ll guess I’ll keep my eyes half closed the whole time, just in case. Trust me when I say that I was in a lot more danger as a missionary then I’ll be on this trip. I have the wits to avoid the kind of places I sought out on my mission. No more likely to die on this trip than I am every day as I drive in my car.

Robbery: Ok, now this is a legitimate concern. I could definitely get robbed on this trip. I won’t have that much, but, I know I could still get robbed. So, here’s my game plan if it does happen:

1. Try to smooth talk the robber out of it. I think even robbers would get excited about my trip and want to help me out. Hopefully at this point I’ll have made a bunch of money on the streets, so maybe I can offer to teach them some of my tricks. I’m not planning on a high probability of success with this one.

2. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to get away. So, this will entail a quick kick to the man’s pride and joy, or maybe some mace in the face. I’ve already had some offers of friends to buy me a can of pepper spray. They say they’ll feel better about it if I’m armed.

3. If I do get robbed, no worries. I won’t really have that much stuff anyway. Then, I’ll just rely on the kindness of people around me to help me get what I need to finish my journey. I’m sure it will all work out.

Now, I doubt anybody is going away with this blog relieved from the worries they had for my physical safety. However, maybe you can see how ridiculous and unlikely the possible dangers are. I’ll be fine, and I’m sure I’ll come away from this trip with a renewed perspective on how good most of the people in this world really are.

More Doubts and Fears

I’ve started having some worries today about my trip. As I’ve been pondering and trying to figure out what my fears are about, I think I’ve come to a better understanding of why I’m nervous. I’m scared that I’m not going to accomplish what I’d like to accomplish with my trip. I’m scared that I’m going to get out on my trip, and start having second thoughts about what I’m doing. Like, with every job that I’ve had with graduation. I can see myself questioning my motives for doing what I’m doing, and not having sufficient motivation to carry through with it. I really don’t want that to happen. I mean, I’ve been having doubts with every decision I’ve made with graduation, and this is something that I’ve felt really good about and have been really excited to do.

I think one of the main reasons for this fear is the fact that I’m pretty sure there isn’t any job that will excite me. I want to be an entrepreneur, and I really don’t think I’ll feel satisfied until I’m successful in my own venture. So, is the purpose of this trip really to figure out what occupation I could enjoy? Hmmm, now that’s the question. Although I would like to be able to find an occupation that I could enjoy and learn from while I work on my own business, I know that any occupation I have will be seen as a short-term solution to help me accomplish my long-term goals. So, really, I don’t think the purpose of my trip is to find an occupation I would enjoy, although I do think that would be a nice byproduct.

I guess I just really want to be sure of what my purpose for this trip is, because I’d hate to build a blog around a certain idea, and then want to change it half-way through. So, I think my real objective and purpose of this trip is to gain a breadth of experience. I want to understand how things are in the real world. How do people do certain jobs and feel fulfilled doing them? What kind of places are out there that I haven’t experienced? What kind of people can I meet and learn from? What do the big and small companies of this country look like, and how do they operate? What kinds of problems exist in the lives of people all over the country that could be fixed by businesses?

I really think that no matter what I do on my trip, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished my goal if I learn and grow from my experiences. So, really, I can do the same things I’ve been thinking about. I can try to go to work with different people. I can try to tour different businesses across the country. I can stay with a different person every night. Because, in the end, I just want to have a lot of experience and find out what my next step in life really is. I guess I shouldn’t end my trip until I have a specific plan for the future. I can see myself stopping in a city, seeing a good opportunity for a business, and staying there in order to bring it to fruition.

Now, that’s definitely a hard purpose to portray to other people. It’s been hard enough to tell people what I’m doing as it is. Just saying that I’m hitch hiking across the country really doesn’t do the trip justice. Whatever, I’m not doing this for other people anyway.

On another note, I’ve been trying to establish a schedule that I can maintain while I’m on the road. So, I’ve started doing exercises that I should be able to do, no matter where I stay. I’m doing calisthenics every night and running every morning. It feels great when I’m consistently exercising. How come I ever let myself not exercise regularly? I love running. Every time I go running, I feel so good and I wonder why I’m not 100% on doing it every day. I guess that’s just life. Constantly trying to do what you know you should do.

Well, that’s all the thoughts I got for today. There’s a funny video clip from the new twilight movie that I’ve been showing to lots of people that I’d like to share:

Explore the lives of others

I’m kind of feeling sick right now and so I don’t feel like writing in this blog too much. I’m not too sure how long this will be, but I’ll do my best.

I was having some doubts about the trip this morning, but now I’m feeling pretty good about it. I think that I should have two main purposes of this trip. First, I want to use it as career exploration. That means, I want to talk to as many different people as I can about what they do and the skills that are useful in their occupation. I was actually thinking about requiring myself to write in my blog every night about a different occupation. So, that could mean that I need to either jobshadow or interview somebody every day about their occupation. Second, I want to see more places, and decide on where I would like to move to next. I think if I have those as my main purposes, it will be a lot easier for me to focus on and get something out of the trip.

That means, I don’t want to have to worry about money so much on my trip. I’d like to be able to make enough from my job in the next few weeks, or be able to work during my trip doing sales. At least I want enough to start out my trip so that I don’t have to worry about money for the first little bit. Maybe once I’m out on the road I’ll see different opportunities for jobs and what not, and it might not be so bad to run out. But, in the beginning, I’d like to have enough to not have to worry about it.

I think one reason I’m feeling really good about it right now is because I was surfing around on the CouchSurfing website. All of the experiences that people share help me to see how it would be a great experience because I’ll be able to meet lots of different people. I could stay with a different person every night and get a glimpse into their life and their lifestyle. That will help me explore occupations and how people live even more.

Work or not to Work?

I’ve been thinking some more about my trip, and analyzing the different options that I have and what would be the best. I’ve been thinking more about how to make money on the trip. By going on the trip without money, I’m making the trip a very entrepreneurial venture. I’m forcing myself to be creative, scrappy, and to find ways to make money along the way. Those are things that I really like about that option. But, is that too much to worry about every day? Even if I have enough money in the bank for food every day, that still leaves me plenty of things to worry about. How am I going to get to my next location? Where am I going to stay? etc.

So, the other option, which I’m really liking right now, is trying to do my sales job while I travel. Right now, I’m working 4 hours a day doing phone sales. Everything I use to sell the service, I have access to online. Even the phone calls I make are on a business Skype account. It would be very easy for me to bring my laptop around with me, and to sell remotely. Well, it might still be a struggle because I’d have to find good Wi-Fi in a location where I could talk out loud on my phone. I also don’t even know if this would be a possibility for me. I’m not going to talk to the company about this possibility until I’ve been there for a while, and once I really start doing well with the sales. Once I’m really good, I’m sure they’d be willing to work something out with me.

Anyway, that option appeals to me because money would be something I wouldn’t have to worry about. It would be easier for me to travel more frequently and to see more sites, because I wouldn’t be dependent on my ability to make money. Also, if I have no money on the trip, I might end up getting really crappy jobs that kind of suck to have. I mean, since I graduated, I have kind of been scraping by and doing some random jobs that really haven’t been that great. Although having to use my imagination to find jobs would give me lots of experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise, I’m not sure those are the experiences I want to have. For example, let’s say I get to Cali and I want to go to Hawaii. Although it would interesting to try and find out ways to make enough money to get to Hawaii. What if it takes me a month to get enough money for a plane ticket? Then, I’m in California for a month, and I might get sick of it. Whereas, if I’m working daily, and I have money to travel when I want, it might be more interesting and fun.

I’m not sure which option I would like better. In reality, I’m not even sure doing phone sales remotely is an option. But, there are good and bad things about both options. It really just boils down to what reasons are the most important to me for this trip. If my main reason is to get out of Utah, see and experience as many new places as possible, then it would be better to have a job and money. But, if my main reason is to face all of my fears, learn as much as possible from my experience, then going penniless is the best option.

Another thing I just thought about is how me having to worry about making money every day might actually not be the most entrepreneurial way to go. On this trip, I plan on creating a blog and trying to get as many people to follow it as possible. I can learn a ton from the whole process of creating and maintaining a blog. I’ll want to write good content every day, continue to adapt the blog to meet the wants of my growing number of readers, learn better ways of monetizing it, figure out new ideas to market the blog, etc. If I have to worry about money every day, then I might not be able to spend as much time figuring out how to make my blog a success. Some of the travel blogs I have found have turned into full-time jobs for the writers.

As I was thinking of any new ideas I could use for my blog today, I gained some inspiration from a blog I was visiting called WhereTheHeckIsMatt? The guy does a little jig at all of the different places that he visits. I mean, it’s kind of funny, but the cool thing is how his little jig became viral, and people started telling others to watch the goofy guy dancing. Well, somehow, Stride gum ended up getting a copy of one of his dance videos. So, they paid for him to travel around the world and do dance videos, twice. Anyway, as I was thinking about something unique I could do, I thought of doing music videos. I don’t know exactly what I could do, but I was thinking of just making music videos about different portions of my trip. The would be parodies on existing songs, and then I would just post them on my blog and online. My first idea is to make a parody of the song by Miley Cyrus, Party in the USA:

Instead of Party in the USA, I would make the song be “Couchsurfing in the USA”. And let’s admit it, Miley Cyrus songs and music videos are perfect to do parodies of. So, I’m not exactly sure how my music videos would turn out, but I think it would be fun to do parody music videos about certain aspects of my trip. If I do a somewhat decent job, that might be something that could go viral. So, I might have to learn some video editing skills before I go.

The Doubts Start

Well, I started having some doubts today about my trip. I was actually surprised that I felt so good about everything so far, so, I guess I kind of expected myself to have doubts. I mean, I still haven’t made my mind up for sure about the whole thing, so it’s understandable that I’ll have doubts. I think I’m just starting to fear some things.

First off, I’m a little nervous about the cold. Even though my plan is to start in Arizona and then head off to CA, it’s still the winter time. During the winter, it’s cold outside, and so I’m not sure if I’ll want to be outside all the time in the cold. This is actually probably one of my biggest fears of the whole trip: timing. Would it be better to go at another time?

Second off, money. I know facing my fears is one of the points of the trip, so it’s natural to have a fear that I won’t have enough money. I just wonder if I’ll get caught some where, unable to raise the funds I need. I just might end up doing crappy jobs just to get by, where, I could just work for money here, and then go on more trips. I was also thinking today of the possibility of keeping my sales job, and just working remotely. That way I could pay for all of my expenses with my job, but I could just travel around while I’m doing it.

So, I think those are my biggest concerns right now. I’m still very optimistic about the trip, but I’m just not feeling as sure as I was. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about travel blogs and stuff online, and it has been educational to see all of the different blogs that are out there and crazy things that people do. I really do want to get out and see more parts of the country, but is the best way to do that penniless? That’s the question to be answered I guess.

On another thought, I’m kind of surprised at how accepted dishonesty is in the sales profession. I like my sales job right now, but I’m just surprised at how comfortable people are with bending the truth. I don’t ever want to make anything up or be dishonest, but other people don’t seem to mind the means, as long as the person understands what they are getting into in the end. I just don’t agree with that.

Reasons Behind the Madness

The more I’ve thought and talked to people about my trip, the better it continues to sound to me. I talked to my Dad about it today, and I kept telling a bunch of other people about it. I also talked real long to my cousin Julia Boyce about it. I thought of a couple more reasons why I think this trip would be good for me.

1. Career Exploration – Knocking doors gave me more exposure to people’s lives and occupations than anything else I’ve ever done. I think this trip will be the same. I’ll be in contact with so many different people every day, that I’ll be able to learn a lot about what jobs are out there and what kind of things I might enjoy doing.

2. Overcoming Fear – When I go on a trip like this, I’ll be facing fears that all my most basic necessities won’t be met. I will worry about not having a place to stay, not having enough money to buy food, not having any friends or loved ones around me, etc. Those are some basic necessities that I need, and I’m exposing myself to the fear that will come when those things aren’t readily available. Once I can overcome that fear, I think it will build a lot of confidence in myself. I’ll feel like I can do anything. I won’t ever have fear of going broke or losing my job again in my life, because I know what it will be like to have nothing. I’ll have overcome that, and so then nothing will scare me. I also think that when I make it a daily habit of overcoming my fear, that other things I fear also won’t be so scary for me. I really think that fear will become much less of an issue in my life if I face all of my fears head on in this trip.

3. Getting to Know Myself – This is really close to career exploration, but I think I’ll get to know my strengths really well on this trip. I’m going to be racking my brain trying to think of ways to make money. This will help my greatest strengths stand out to me, and I’ll continually use those strengths to keep myself afloat.

I also think I could use this trip to learn a lot about business and entrepreneurship. I think a trip like this is very hippie-ish. It sounds like something some dude would do that drives a VW Van and has long hair. That’s why I think it’s a little funny to tell people about my plan, because most of them are probably wondering why a guy like me would do it. Well, I think the trip is very entrepreneurial. I’m taking a very big risk by going on this trip, and I’ll have to take risks every day. Nothing is guaranteed. I could definitely not find enough work to buy food, and I might not be able to find places to stay all the time. Those are risks that I’m willing to take. Also, I’m going to have to use my own ingenuity and creativity to figure out ways to make money. Both of these are skills I’m going to need as an entrepreneur, but I’ll be learning them in a very cheap way. I think a lot of entrepreneurs learn similar skills by making big money mistakes. Hopefully I can learn a lot of the skills I’ll need as an entrepreneur while traveling around homeless and penniless.

I want to start a blog, and I really think I could get a good following. I thought of some ideas for a name today. I’m having a tough time deciding which name to use. I’m teetering between recentgradtonomad.com or fromrecentgradtonomad.com. The only difference is with the use of “from” in the second one. I think the second one sounds a little better, but I want to make it memorable and not too long. When I named my website www.ratemysummersalesjob.com, I thought it sounded better with the “job” at the end. After time, and having told people the URL, I’ve realized that most people forget the “job” part of the URL. They ask me how my ratemysummersales site is going. So, I don’t want to make the same mistake with my blog URL. Maybe I’ll start to tell people the name of my blog is “FromRecentGradToNomad.com” and I can see what they say when they repeat it back to me. I plan on telling every single person on my trip that I come in contact with about my blog. I think I might even have some business cards printed up so that I can give them to everybody. I’m also thinking about having shirts made, or maybe just putting the URL on my backpack. I would like to advertise for it and see how good of a following I can get. I’ll probably try to make money with it, but that really isn’t my main objective. It would just be cool to see how many different people I could get to follow me.