Very recently my mom told me about a friend’s friend who passed away at the young age of 65, right before retirement. My mom made a stark comment that really struck me, “you work and then you die”. I wondered to myself, what’s in between that makes the journey worth it?
Sometimes my mom gives me mixed advice. But that’s okay because I have mixed opinions. When I first purchased my house with Carl, my mom gave me a little lecture about saving money and not traveling so much. But when I made the decision to carry a mortgage, I made it very clear to everyone – travel is not something I’d sacrifice and I don’t want to have one without the other.
While I’m a far cry from a world traveler, I’m slowly getting there. My travel journey began 
in 2012. That year, I traveled to Hong Kong, Thailand and afterwards, Holguin, Cuba and San Diego, CA. I don’t have the right personality to leave everything behind and live a nomadic lifestyle. What I feel most comfortable with is keeping my full time job, get in the housing market and travel when I can.
I’m not writing this post to convince you to do the same but to remind myself to appreciate what I have. I browse through my Twitter and Instagram feed to see what my fellow travelers are up to. My feed flows with beautiful pictures and I wish I was there too. But I work for the life I want to live today, not only for retirement. I work for the journey so that at my destination I can look back and say I lived a life well traveled.
Time is not something we all have and we don’t know how much of it we do have. So live a life doing what you love.
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