Are we there yet?

Everyone experiences some sort of life crisis. It is because life is indeed a journey and we like to be behind the wheel and mapping it out. Some people care for breeze walking and others blaze on at mach 5 speeds to see the terrain behind a mountain of uncertainty. Crises occur when the map turns on us. For 40 year olds and even 30 year olds, they cart-tograph to realize that they are not where they intended to be. They start panicking because they seem to be lost and try to drive back to where they ought to be as planned. The reality is not that they are lost. It is just that they are in a different place and sometimes better than imagined and this turns to a mid-life crisis of fulfilling daydream destinations.

While, in an era of contagious catchphrases, the term quarter-life crises is tagged on twentysomethings who hop on a 24-hour race to their own personal god-knows-what goal with pitstops of partying. Unlike the trekkers before them, the orientation of urban professionals raised on TV is to join the Amazing Race. The map has become more treacherous with a million ways to get to your destinations, with ideals even loftier than the show itself. I mean we live in a generation where the corporate ladder has been totally sawed off by 23-year-old billionaire dropouts who just swoosh to the top. This can also be attributed to the fact that we were also raised by complex multi-goal oriented videogames. By the millennium, Super Mario was not only saving the princess but had to also collect a hundred stars, find the new red jumpsuit under the crystal cave, and zap Pikachu away to unlock the secret ending with a hidden code in the background mountains to access exclusive bragging rights King Kuppa wallpaper. Pheww... It is no wonder why a quarter-life crisis includes being self-supportive monetary wise, being at peace with everyone including the neighbor’s dog, saving the environment before it melts away, going to the gym to melt away the fat, finding the one you are meant to be with for the rest of your life, and finally finding time to thank God for all of it, at breakneck speeds with an added touch of poise while doing it. Hence, it is also no surprise that our internal compass tends to go awry as we reach the regions of 30. If you don’t believe me, just visit 7-Eleven to find 101 guide maps in the magazine rack to all sorts of success.

Reach one destination at a time

So, what can we do when the road decides to hit back? We can take a cue by following the path paved by Tony and Maureen Wheeler, creators of Lonely Planet, the ubiquitous travel guides found in the backpack of sight seekers. In their biography/guide to being a travel expert, The Lonely Planet Story offers a simple tip, which is to cut down your goal to one and stick to it. For a young couple, their goal was to reach Australia from England by sticking out their thumbs as far as they could to reach their target location. They primarily chose Australia because they planned to end up broke by the time they hit Sydney since their British citizenship would allow them to work there. True enough, when they reached the unfinished Sydney Opera House on Oct. 7, 1973, all they had was 27 cents and each other.

This brings me to another tip, which is to never forget to bring a travel buddy with you. For Tony Wheeler, he found in it in his wife Maureen. In the first 100 pages of the book, this enduring couple zips and jumps from locale to locale in a matter of pages and sometimes just sentences to make their first guide Across Asia on the Cheap. Descriptions of places such as Kathmandu to the jungles of Malaysia are kept to a minimum because of the wealth of stories in their travel log. It is a harrowing expedition of losing cameras, almost paying exorbitant amounts of cash for a missing motorcycle, culture shock, and starvation in a boat. Yet, later on, staying put actually proved to be more dangerous with the experience of juggling an international company coupled with rebellious teenagers and dubious business partners. Fortunately, 30 years after getting married, they braved these storms together as proven by the fact that they still keep their pact to have a photograph taken on their anniversary in a unique place every year.

Enjoy the ride

Crisis can be curbed by savoring the moment. According to Tony Wheeler, travel writers keep away from “author burnout” by being “enthusiastic about the most unexpected topics” amid all the facts they have to cover. It is because they know even before 9-11 that landscapes can be changed by political and environmental forces. For example, the poultry delicacies you raved about three months ago in China can take a deadly turn with SARs or that Afghanistan is no longer a hitchhiker’s paradise are proof in point. All you can do is enjoy the sunset because you might not see it the same way again tomorrow.

End of the road

Lastly, don’t mind your quarter-life crisis as “long as the road doesn’t own you” as Bamboo covering Carol King’s So Far Away would sing. The quarter life crisis is not so bad after all because it is a phase we all go through to find what we are called to do and discover the people we are meant to be with. The Wheelers eventually settled down and put their hiking shoes away when they had kids and took charge of Lonely Planet. Trouble only begins when we get lost in the woods and our happiness is the never-ending pursuit of happiness in itself.

The best thing about surviving a crisis is that it unravels what you really want and gives a better sense of who you are. For the Wheelers who I think passed both quarter- and mid-life crises, they realized that they are truly called to be globetrekkers. Thus, last September, they sold 75 percent of their shares to Lovely Planet to BBC so they can go back to exploring the world.

  As for me, traveling even an hour away from Manila cures my itchy feet or whatever crisis I have because I learn that people are the same in every barrio of the world. We all have the same joys and anxieties. The only things different are the language and the social customs. Hence, it helps me realize that somewhere in India, there is a columnist suffering from mental block while trying to end his article, with an even tighter deadline, and this gives me comfort that the world ain’t so lonely after all.

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The Lonely Planet Story by Tony and Maureen Wheeler

Available at National Book Store

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Please react via my blog at http://readnow.i.ph.