It really is hard to fault New Zealand - it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and the fact I can go 5 minutes down the road and see these sort of views still constantly astounds me.
I was lucky to snap a picture of what really portrays New Zealand to me. I woke up early for a dentist appointment that turned out to be non-existent, so I headed slightly further down the road to the waterfront to find a man that had ridden his bike down to the waterfront for a quiet spot of fishing on a foggy Monday morning. It took him ten minutes before he realised I was there, where he showed me a friendly smile and wave.
I really will miss New Zealand and I'm once again spending my final week here relishing what it has on show. It's okay though, I'm on a mission to explore what else the world has to offer and will no doubt find similar instances in my travels.
I suppose you could say most people would deem what I have as regrets, but I wouldn't change them, and those are what regrets are aren't they? Things you would change.
There would be numerous advantages to doing so, but the end outcome would be different and I like where I am at the moment, that outcome. I can quite easily place the time-frame that I could consider to have been wasted. Specifically from mid 2005 until the end of 2009. Don't get me wrong, I've made many memories and many new friendships in that time and I wouldn't change those for the world. It's more so what I did with my time on the whole. I've tried my hand at Computing, Psychology, Geography, Law and Media.
Outside of Psychology, none of them really interested me nor stirred any sort of passion and even then, I was in no mindset to put away a good three to four years of solid study.
I will be the first to admit that I can be lazy and unless I'm really passionate about it, you'll be hard pressed to find me putting in time for it. Now although this has changed over the last year or so and have finally begun to realise that more often than not, you'll have a few hurdles to clamber, it wasn't the only reason I'd spent those years wasting away.
As many people will understand, it's rather hard watching others around you succeed and have the clarity in where they want to go whilst you scramble about trying to forge your own little path. I sure did. Each and every thing I tried was because I was trying to figure out whether I'd still be doing it 10 years from now, whether I could picture myself utilising a degree in x,y and z. I was also very focused on earning a decent salary as I figured if I wasn't I'd be living in squalor, I needed that degree to enable me to be successful.
That was foolish. It would be an understatement to say it's taken me a while to come to the conclusion that I shouldn't judge my own success on that of others and that the path I so happen to desire is quite different to most. But what is most important is that this path is perfectly okay.
A lot of this self judgment could have come from being in a somewhat permanent state of limbo, watching the world go by and see friends hit their goals whilst you sit there still scratching your head wondering whether you'll ever find your destined career and life plan.
If it isn't obvious already, I want to travel. That is my sole desire, to travel everywhere I can and see as much as possible. Travel and Photography would have to be my two favourite interests so why not follow them? Through travel you get so much. Culture, language, history, music, food, people, landscapes. Why not indulge in it? I'm only here for one lifetime so why should I spend the time worrying about what I'll be doing in the future and whether I need my degree now or can get it later, or not at all.
This is what makes me happy and that is the most important thing of all, Sydney was a stepping stone, a very small one. It also made me extremely excited for what it signified and what the future holds. I can't wait to get back there to start it properly.
Now you might ask why I'm writing this out as if this is all breaking news. No regrets, live and learn from your mistakes etc. Well, it's not new at all. I go by these ideas as do many. However, I think we forget them all too often.
That is why I'm writing this post. I forgot. I forgot I don't have any regrets and that I am where I am now because of them. I forgot that I am the happiest I've been in a very, very long time.
