Adventure

What a Moroccan Fisherman Taught Me About Life

Sunset on Casablanca's cornice, Morocco

I got back from Morocco about two weeks ago.  In total I spent over two months there with most of that time in Casablanca.

Casablanca is the largest city in Morocco and the commercial center for the country. It’s definitely not as interesting a city as Marrakech or Fez, but it has a quiet charm about it. I’ll always hold it near my heart because of the time I spent there.

And the city will also be special to me because of a fisherman I met there. The time I spent with him taught me a lot about life, travel and what it means to be poor.
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What You Miss By Doing What Everyone Else Does

'Off the Beaten Path', Iceland Fields of Lyngdalsheiði

There’s a natural tendency to stick to the middle ground and do what everyone around you is doing. It’s like something is pulling you in line with everyone else. I can certainly see why that happens. Everyone likes to feel like they belong so if you do what everyone else is doing, you won’t feel excluded as an outsider.

But some of the best things I’ve done for myself happened because I decided to do things others weren’t. In fact, I think you could miss out on some really great experiences by doing what everyone else does.
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I’m Going to Morocco!

Hassan II Mosque, Casblanca, Morroco

It’s still crazy for me to think about it, but in just a little over a week, I’ll be on a plane flying to Morocco where I’ll be living for the next two months. To be specific, I’ll be in Casablanca where I’ll be teaching at an American high school. It’s part of a program I registered for while earning my graduate degree.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, some of this information will be old news. But I haven’t really shared all the details. So I want to get some of that information out. It’s been quite an interesting experience so far, and I haven’t even arrived there yet.
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Make Your Life Awesome by Thinking of it as a Story

Make Life Awesome By Thinking of it as a Story

A few years ago I was in a class where the teacher asked everyone to finish this sentence: “life is a…”. Apparently, how you finish the sentence reveals how you see life, your place in it and your overall outlook. I don’t know if that’s entirely true, but I can tell you mine seemed pretty accurate. I put down that life is a story.

Even after all these years, I’d still say that life is a story. But not the kind where we’re just passive characters without a say in the plot unfolding around us. Everyone writes their own story. All you need to do is decide how you want it to develop; it’s up to you how awesome everything turns out.
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The 6 Habits of Well-Traveled People

'Too Many People', United States, New York, New York City, Times Square

“How do you get to travel so much?”

“Why is it that you always seem to be traveling somewhere?”

I’m asked questions like these on a regular basis. It’s rather surprising too since I really don’t feel like I travel all that often. I travel roughly three to four times a year, but there are people out there that travel way more than that.  But if you consider that the people who ask me these questions travel maybe once every couple of years, I can see why they’d think I travel a lot.

After some self-reflection I’ve realized that I have different habits from those who don’t see much of the world.  These habits have helped build a lifestyle where travel becomes a big part of my life.  What is more, I’ve noticed these same habits in other regular travelers.
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What You Can Learn By Doing Dangerous, Stupid and Crazy Things

 

A couple of years ago while traveling through Belize, I had the opportunity to take a boat out into the nearby coral reef and swim in an area full of sharks and stingrays. Before I jumped into the water, I thought about how crazy it was to put myself into that situation. Most people would probably think it was too dangerous.

But I love experiences like this. They seem dangerous and stupid at first, but afterwards you look back and wonder why you thought that way to begin with. In fact, I’d say there’s actually a lot you can learn by doing dangerous, stupid and crazy things.
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Think Your Way to an Adventurous Spirit

It may seem surprising, but how many adventures you have is directly correlated to the thoughts floating around in your head. Your thoughts determine how you see yourself and what you think you’re capable of doing. They determine what decisions you make and how far you think you can take yourself. After all, what is an adventurous spirit more than a mindset?

However I think people who want to get more adventures often neglect this area. That’s really a shame too since these thoughts can be a powerful way to build a more adventurous life, create more excitement and do more of what you want to do. All it takes is a simple shift in the way you think about things.
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