Escape plan

I've often thought about how simple and easy life used to be when I was a kid, teenager and young adult; not that I didn't have problems and complexities, I had many, just that when compared to later in life I look back on those early years and mourn the loss of that simplicity and ease of living. I used to think life was so difficult back then but knowing what I know now...well, it just wasn't. I think the same could be said by most people.

One of the things I loved back then was the outdoors, it was there I felt most comfortable; life for an adventurous kid in a small rural Australian town was pretty good and it was a good place to find many of those adventures in the wide open spaces around where I lived. Those early years gave me a love for adventure, of the outdoors, of challenging myself and finding the skills and self-reliance one needs in environments like that...and those things stuck with me even when life became so much more complicated.

I don't get out and about as much as I used to in years past (I'm a busy man with a complex life) although I reckon I get out into nature, I mean away into the wilderness and away from cities, more than the average person...yet it never seems enough. I've been thinking about that lately, yearning for the wilderness and travel, and each week that passes seems to exacerbate the feelings of wanting to get away. Sure, it happens differently than when I was a kid, that's for certain, but the feeling of it, the emotion of it, is the same and I long for it...not snippets, but long periods of it.

We spend so much of our lives working for paper tokens called money that's supposed to "provide for our lives" but in striving for it we are in fact exchanging our lives for it and I am becoming increasingly unhappy about swapping the most precious thing I have (my life) for it and that's why a few months ago I began to plan my escape. I'm not sure what my escape plan will fully look like yet however I have come to the realisation that I'm actually in a position to actively make it a reality, plan it with the understanding that making it happen (soon) is possible. So, that's what I've been doing lately, planning my escape, and it's been enlightening in many ways.

I'll not be divulging it all here, nobody's business after all, however I might release snippets now and then. Today though, I was thinking about it and came to a specific decision that will have huge (positive) implications on that planning process and the eventual escape itself and I felt inclined to say a word or two.

There's so much in the world to see, and as much as I've seen, (that's already a lot), there's always more...it's the experiences as well that I value; there's so much life to live but each day the physical life we have gets a day shorter so I guess decisions need to be made right? And then actions taken.

I can't imagine I'm the only one to think this way or the only one who is planning an escape from the slavery of modern life; are you, and if so where in the process are you currently at? What might it look like in an ideal world and in reality do you think it will work out for you as planned? Feel free to comment.