2015 started out hopeful as I still had a hangover from the volunteer activity in Ecuador and the side trip to Peru. The people I met there reminded me that I was working with the world’s most brilliant minds, making me feel like a kid walking among giants. It was both an enriching and humbling experience. They inspired me to achieve greater heights in my career, and I was duly recognized.

The rest of the year unfolded as it should, I immersed myself in family, work, friends, travel and hobbies while I grew roots and faded into mediocrity. It was predictable and safe, it was frighteningly comfortable, I was almost on the verge of contentment, and I would have stayed there if I could, but then life happened.

Life’s like that, it doesn’t prepare you for a denouement, it takes you up then slams you down, forcefully to the ground, without warning, and you are left clueless on what just happened, as you try to pick up your broken pieces and decide what you’ll do next.

Coelho said “don’t be someone that searches, finds, and then runs away”. When I decided to leave my comfort zone for good, it felt like I was running away.  I was not really looking for anything in particular but something found me, something that needed to be distilled by time to make it pure. So I chose distance to make me wiser, but I think Murakami may have been right, “distance might not solve anything, no matter how far you run”.

So here I am, thirty three days later and seven thousand miles away, I jumped off the cliff and I’m about to hit the ravine, but I’m still struggling to grow my wings.

I’ve got nothing on me save for an inked pen, a notebook and three minutes of your time, so here’s the one zillion simoleon question of a lifetime: will you come fly with me?