Setting Everything Aside and make Taking the Leap*

Hello everyone !

Today I'd like to speak about a special topic. We've all heard of such stories, a man or a couple who just gives up everything they have** to travel the world. It's fascinating. How could people do this ? How can someone leave everything he has ? Friends, job, family... A priori, that's all someone needs. That's the proof that everything might be nothing. So to say, when normally, you think that someone needs a roof and a family and so one to live, some people prove the contrary by leaving their roots to explore the world. They're alone and surounded by everybody at the same time. They're homeless and citizens of the world at the same time. While some people just want to get married, stay with their job, whether it's good or not, and live in the same place for the rest of their lives, some people just want to feel free, to travel, to discover everyday new things everyday and meet new people, even though they risk their lives everyday because you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. Are they fleeing their daily life or are they just courageous enough to make this incredible leap? It's somewhat confusing...but fascinating. I admire people who do this. Nevertheless, I don't know if I could do this. I want to travel the world later, but I don't know if I could set everything aside, everyday living everyday without having any safety for the next day. I have a nagging curiosity for the feelings you must have when you do this. You feel that as though you're free like as a birds*** but at the same time you don't even now where you are going to sleep tonight. It seems unhinged, however, loads of men and women have done this and are doing this while I'm writing.

What do you think about it ? Would you do this ?

Thanks for reading and correcting me !

*"Taking a leap (of faith)" is a colloquial expression, so I changed it to this, even though "making a leap" is understandable also.

**Grammatically speaking, this needs a singular pronoun ("he [man] or it [couple] has"), but it sounds weird colloquially.

***"Free is a bird" is also a colloquialism, so I changed this to the singular.

Good question. Personally, I couldn't do it. I like my safety net. But in my travels in the past few years, I've run into a recent university graduate and a retired couple doing this type of thing. In these cases, I could see doing the same thing they were doing.

For the recent graduate, he tries to find work in exchange for room and board where he can, and he's trying to work his way through Europe. But he also knows that when the money and work runs out, he'll go home to his parents and start looking for a job.

For the retired couple, it was something they've always wanted to do when their children were grown. But what prompted them to act was that one of their parents was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, so they wanted to do this before they needed to start caring full time for the parent.