And so here I am. Officially two weeks from the biggest decision of my life. Call it a quarter-life crisis, a journey of self discovery or even a crazy mission to nowhere. Whatever it is, I know I need to this. To get away from what I have grown up with and see the world for what it really is.

I find myself surrounded by people fixated in chasing after a dream, a career, a relationship, a big fat bank account… an ideal. Without noticing, I find myself been taken along with the tide, raised and influenced to think in a certain way, react in a certain way, be a certain way and even dream a certain way. I was part of the system, part of the crowd. Sometimes, it feels as if I am screaming and screaming my lungs out in a room full of people but having not even one person hearing me or noticing me.

Does it matter in the end? No. My life is my own to live, to understand and to love. I have failed myself in doing just that. In fact, I realized for all my 26 years in this world, I have been loving all the things that will never last me a lifetime. I wasn’t living life spontaneously enough to enjoy the moments, but really just endlessly planning and working for an ideal future that drags my days so much so that they don’t even seem all that appealing anymore. I never once questioned whether what I am doing or working for is really what I really need. Not in the sense of what gives me a good life within societal standards, but what I need to truly live the life that I will be proud of at the end of the day. I want to be able to tell myself on the day I meet my maker, that I have truly lived, and that I have done the very best to be happy in every sense of the word. That I have no regrets, as much as I can manage when it all ends.

I have bought myself a one way ticket out of this country, ready to do just that. I am in the midst of selling most of my possessions and I have already tendered my resignation. Do I have a plan? No. Do I know where I will end up? No. Do I know when I will come back? No. Do I know what I’ll do when I do come back? No. But that’s the beauty of it. We don’t always have to know the answer. We don’t always have to be in control. Just live.

If this is just one life I am getting, this is one life I will really have to truly live and BE happy. Very soon I will, on the 29th of December 2013.