focus your confort zone

text and photo by Jon Humphries

Your ten year reunion will tell all. Get out of here, go far and then go farther. By all means never live in the city you grew up in for the rest of your life. See beyond the border, and get out of your comfort zone. Don't be shy your whole life, because there are too many interesting people to meet. Pack your bags, say some quick goodbyes, and hit the road-even if it's only for a week and you have to take a greyhound bus. You'll thank yourself later when you are writing this exact statement to someone else.

So how did you do? Who did you meet? Did you get scared out of your comfort zone? Where are you going next? Don't you feel sorry for those who never leave? Is that why they love high school football so much? How can you ever have any meaningful conversations without traveling? Now you're a better conversationalist- even though you've only taken a total of one week. Are you addicted yet? Please get out of town again. Ride your bike if you have to, or hitchhike.

Warning mandatory read: On the Road by Jack Kerouac. You'll look cool while reading it. Maybe try to smoke a cigarette while you're reading. But you are cool, because traveling is the best thing you can do with your time and money. Money: it's pretty lame that you need so much money to travel. Go light: one pair of pants, one skateboards, one music device, one book, one pair of shoes, and a toothbrush. Don't worry about smelling to bad, this will help add to the excitement. You need to not worry about how you look to really enjoy the adventure.

Don't listen to your parents, or do listen to the m if they're awesome. But do travel no matter what they say. Postpone college-don't spend the rest of your life working. Experience life because you only have one. Become a student of the road, but watch out for Waffle House. Bring a friend sometime; let him or her in on some life. Just go again, even if you are over those flight attendants and that guy next to you who is invading your space in those really big seats on the plane.

Plan a journey and go to a place you never knew existed. Go north, south, east, and west. Keep going until you fell satisfied, and don't stop until yo reach your goals. Or will you have goals? Maybe you won't. Keep going and going like the energizer bunny. Drag your body all over the globe. Go strong- it might be your only chance in life to do something like this. Everyone will wonder what happened to you, but you don't need contact with anyone until you have fulfilled your desires.

Close your eyes and point to a place on the globe and go there. You nomad, vagabond, tourist, vagrant, gypsy, homeless, wanderer, drifter, tramp, transient, bum. These names you might hear are all compliments in the eyes of those who are stuck with their nine-to-five lives. It's not your time, and maybe it never will be. Don't listen to the mainstream.

You know what? Maybe this is the best solution for you: buy a van, live in it for a year, and make it your home. Make the road your home. It won't take long, and you might be addicted for life. And if anyone asks, tell them you're on the road to the midnight sun