From Corporate to the Now…

At the time I started writing this we are sitting by our campsite overlooking the beach in Arnhem Land, 18 months since officially starting our travels and life on the road…

So what was the moment where I choose to put a hold on my corporate career and travel instead?! Well it wasn’t really a single light bulb moment, it all started with a seed planted within myself years ago which niggled and grew until I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

Since graduating university with two degrees and subsequent years of intensive study, my life for that last 6+ years looked significantly different to what it does now. I had started working my way up the ‘corporate ladder’, while keeping my health/spiritual presence as a side hustle. I am the type of person who throws 110% in to anything I set my mind too and I was motivated to work toward my ‘corporate women’ goal and make a difference where I could in that way.

Buuut, it got to the point that I could no longer ignore the pull toward something else, that internal feeling I needed to explore a little more… It was by no means an easy choice, I mean for years that was my identity and here I was about to mix that up.

I would often get told by people I met that I didn’t strike them as an “accountant” type and I would be labelled the ‘positive healthy one’ in the office, even though I felt as though I was keeping a tight lid on my spiritual pulls – maybe you can remove the girl from the spirit space, but you cannot move the spiritual mindset from the girl (… well something like that)! I still think there is no reason you can’t be both, but the energies can be very different and draining at times.

Dan and I had always said that we were going to travel or live somewhere different for at least 12 months or so… we didn’t know how or when, we just knew it would happen when it was right (cue power of manifestation).

Over the years we focused on our careers, studying, buying a home, getting married and a few (well quite a few) holiday adventures (the travel bug was always strong). With our careers developing and coming into our ‘30s’… society would say it was time to ‘settle’ in, continue to tick off those boxes. Right?

I felt we had reached one of those decision making cross roads in life, and we just had to make the choice to go left or right. We stopped over thinking and decided to just see where we were lead. I found that I was paying extra attention to people older than me and tried to visualise what I wanted our life to look like at that point, and what I wanted us to look back and say. I found that I started to notice wrinkles, yes wrinkles, not to sound materialistic at all, of the people around me, as well as my own ‘smile’ lines (fyi – not in a negative way) and it struck something within me.

In true ‘Karlee’ form, I wrote a list of pros/cons and the unknowns. One thing that I had written which was neither a pro or con, but more of an observation was that from all of our travels so far we had noticed that it’s was either the retired or the families with kids making their way around Australia, sometimes the odd international backpacker but not generally to the places we go… it’s not often we have met people in the same situation as us that we could chat too. This observation got me thinking… part of it made me want to do it more and the other part made me question it all and what was the right choice (I guess I was comparing to what ‘everyone’ else was doing)).

There came a point that Dan’s contract at the time was nearing an end and we said that if it didn’t get renewed that would make the decision for us and we would hit the road for a bit. Gratefully, his contract did get renewed but the seed was already well and truly planted, so without overthinking we just made the decision to shake up life as we knew it and make it work… why not right?!

Without sounding too clique, the timing was just right, there were so many things that were pushing us in this direction once we chose to acknowledge them and once we did the doors began to open…. there is that fine line between “trusting everything will happen when it should” and “making it happen”. But when it’s right, it feels right. 

At the end of the day every decision comes down to a choice —to do things either from love or fear – and although I felt we could have kept doing our thing (possibly the easier choice, and don’t worry we thought of many reasons why we should stay), I knew it was fear keeping me there. The fear of going against what we ‘should’ be doing. But the moment that I said yes let’s do this, it instantly felt right. Why did choosing the ‘right’ way feel like the difficult choice?! I think it comes down to the unknown, and stepping out of ‘the norm’.

My decision was never based around taking a complete career change, but one thing lead to the other, and I am very grateful they did and now I can take what I do and link it in with our travels –with thanks to Dan for always being so supportive.

Will we always do this? Maybe not to this extent, but for now we are enjoying it for what it is and embracing the excitement of the unknown.