Two weeks travelling in NZ- insights

[PT89]

Just got back from two weeks travelling in the South island of NZ, renting a camper van.  It was an incredible trip with gorgeous scenery and a great experience.

I would highly recommend travel like this to help inspire a vision for your future.  When going on an adventure like this, you very quickly realize how expensive living the way you want to live can be - doing incredible things like bungee jumping, taking scenic boat cruises, and even camping can be very expensive when you add up all the costs (gas for the trip was around $450).  Motivated me greatly to pursue my career with much more discipline and with a better, more determined vision so I would be able to continue to have experiences like this.

Leo's recent video explaining why he posted his psychadelic experience video has resonated with me more than any other video.  The points he makes about using enlightenment experiences to make real positive change in your life is something that needs to be stressed.  Enlightenment is not the answer to suffering.  Being mindful and rewiring your brain to be more conscious, and to REACT to the shit life throws your way in a better manner I feel is the pursuit that should be had with this process. 

So many things over the past few years have not gone my way, and often times in the past this has gotten me extremely frustrated or angry.  Many little things went wrong on our trip (including not budgeting for $450 gas :)) but after consistent meditation while driving 5 hours a day, I was able to react to these situations much more mindfully and less emotionally.  I've carried this with me after this trip as well, recently learning that my school has hiked our tuition fees by 9.5%, amounting to a $12,000 increase over 3 years that I did not budget for when making my decision to study overseas ($128,000 vs $140,000 +).  A student in the cohort after me literally had to drop out because of this 30k in debt.  This normally would have sent me into a deep rage that would have ruined many days to come, but I've somehow managed to stay incredibly calm, and actually feel good despite this tremendous setback.  This is life, and really there's no point in getting upset about WHAT IS, as this is reality and there's no other way it could be  .  Best make good of the situations your thrown into, what a difficult life it would be to be frustrated by all life's hardships.

I'm heading on a 10 day vipassana tomorrow, and will post back with my insights after this as well   Planning on doing a lot of yoga in my free time there.

Love Leo's approach at testing so many different methods to enlightenment and strongly agree that every individual has unique circumstances and their own difficulties to conquer in this process.  Kudos to him for posting that video on his psychedelic experience and showing his own vulnerabilities - being authentic at its finest.

Edited February 12, 2018 by PT89
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