Follow your dreams....

... but what happens when you get back.

Ok, I've split up with my boyfriend, I hate my job, I want to get out and travel India.. maybe for 6 months, maybe for a year... but what happens after that time is up...

What I want to know is how did it change your life. Did you just come back and return to the job you once hated.... did you figure out what you wanted from life... a lot of people have mentioned here that they are off, but I'd like to hear from the one's that have been there, done that and got the t-shirt.

Whats life like for you now?

I go back to some other job I hate, stick at it, save my cash and "I'm out of here" every year for the last 13.

So yeah, I guess I figured out what I want from life. A life of materialism and all the shit you have to put up with at work, just to maintain your status as a consumer isn't for me!!

I keep a bare bones existance in my flat in Holland and just keep on traveling!!

In some ways temporary work is easier to find than long term or career work so thats a plus side but your pretty much always the "new guy dogsbody" and that's most definitley a down side.

Still with my eye fixed firmly on my goal, of the next India trip, I daydream my way through these boring jobs.

It works for me!!

IM warning : Traveling can be seriously addictive!!

Life is what you make it, quit whining and enjoy being alive ;-)

Believe me, I'm not whining... just interested in what people come back to... how they adjust back... it took me a month to get back into everyday life after only a month in india... how do people adjust after a year....

My last 5 trips have been for 5-8 months. I'm afraid I don't adjust very well and find myself more and more like a fish out of water when I'm back in Holland.
I console myself with the thought that there's always the next trip!!

IM warning : Traveling can be seriously addictive!!

why not just move out there then?

Ha now wouldn't that be nice, unfortunately my wife as much as she loves India, loves her home country as well so isn't prepared to make the big step

Anyway to get status in India isn't easy

That's exactly what we are doing.

We won't be in India 365 days of the year, but will spend the majority of our time there.

I have already set up a business in India, and we have a rented cottage there.

I am flying out tomorrow (my 4th trip this year) and am trying to buy some land to build a house (or find an old house to restore) up in the hills near Ooty, and holiday cottage on the backwaters/beach in Kerala.

That's how India changed my life!

Travelling to India gives you a chance to see how the other half live and survive!You learn to be more philosophical about evry day life and events, and realise that materialistic out look of west is a mirage and would not provide inner satisfaction and contentment.
When you come back to the same old job or any other you may just be able to appreciate the simple things which we take for granted
most of the time.

i recently decided i've had enough of living here in the uk and at my age feel i must go for the quality of life.arrive goa dec 8th for three months upon my return selling my property and all my materialism then return, have 9 years before i collect my meager pension,besides uk aint no place to grow old in.we all see things different what i see are supermarket consumers,taxed of the planet,crime,anger, horrendous traffic jams etc.guess it's making up your own mind regarding what you want.i dont have alot of bread but what i have should give me a better life than the one i dont enjoy here.met quite a few guys in goa last year who do the same as cyberhippie,work 6 months travel 6 months.amazing how many people i know in my home town who are all planning on getting out within the next two years.would the last person to leave uk please turn out the lights.

any jobs going?

I agree, I'm getting more and more disheartened by my life here in London. Even though I was born and brought up here I don't think I'm made for British weather .

I find it funny that my parents gave up living in Pakistan to come to London to make a better life for themselves and thier family, and now I want to leave London for the life they left behind.

when i don't think about it too much, there's nothing lost. just save money and spread the wings. after the winter, comes spring
i'm like a migrating bird.

Hehe, just kidding with you anyway

See, you're already smiling

The goal is to make everyday life fun and traveling time extra fun, that way you look forward to coming home. While making everyday life fun is no where near as easy as it sounds a proper mindset and happy atitude is a good start, from there try to find a job you enjoy. We spend most of out time working so it might as well be enjoyable.

When I was young I went with a friend to a Texas chemical plant looking for construction work. most mornings there would be 20-30 men at the plant and construction foremen would come out and yell a trade that needed hands. On the first day a foreman came out and yelled 'pipefitters' and my friend raised his hand even though he had no idea what a pipefitter does,, the foreman called him in and 30 years later my friend is still a pipefitter bitching how much he hates his job. He spends months deciding what car to buy and yet he spent less than one minute deciding what trade he would do for the rest of his life

This story is true and the moral of the story is that my friend made NO effort on enjoying his job and suffers the consequences.

Life is as good as you make it and if done right it should all be fun, as for my friend, he's lucky the foreman didn't ask for shithouse cleaners :-)

I believe that (for the most part) our lives are created by our choices and not by our circumstances. It sounds like a cliche, but ask yourself, "if not now, when?" Sometimes you just have to close your eyes, hold your nose, and jump right in....

I have a very dear friend....he lived in India four times during the 1970s, a year each time. He did not stop traveling until he was about 40. He is 60 now and there is not a day that goes by that he does not think about living in India again. Nothing would make him happier than to die in India and have his ashes thrown into the Ganges. However, because of his choices in life, he can not go back -- among other reasons, he can not afford it. He told me that he never thought he would just "settle" for the life he has now. Not that he has a bad life, but a life of quiet desperation longing for a place that due to certain life choices, he may never see again.

If not now, when?