LEARNING TO LET GO OF CONTROL
This little adventure of ours has pushed our boundaries in many directions. It has taught us new lessons and forced us to swim through a sea of change from one comfort island to the next.
The main constant lesson we have faced is to learn to be comfortable with letting go of control. It is a lesson that comes in many different forms and one that has been there from the beginning.
We didn’t know what we were doing when we decided to pack, donate or sell everything we owned back in Australia, and head overseas for a year, attempting to housesit our way through North America.
Organising our first housesit took four months and countless emails, so we knew early on we wouldn’t be able to have the full year planned out. To continue, we needed to let go of control.
When we boarded the plane in December 2015, we only had one housesit locked in for four months, in a log cabin, in the northwoods of Wisconsin, in the middle of a state forest, in a town of 37 people.
We had left Australia with the intention of travelling for a year, but we didn’t know where our family was going to sleep after the 1st of May. It was something we couldn’t control but we made the decision that everything would still be worth it even if we need to return home on May 1.
To be able to afford this adventure, we have been housesitting so the high cost of accommodation was taken out. This meant we also needed to let go of control over where we stay. We don’t necessarily get to choose where we go. It really comes down to what is available and if the homeowner chooses us.
Fortunately, after many more emails, we have been able to secure housesits for our entire trip.
If we had waited for everything to be planned, worked out, and perfect, we would never have left Australia and this adventure would just be another dream sitting on the shelf with all my other dreams that I didn’t action because not everything was perfect from the beginning.
Repetition isn’t control
Letting go of control has been a challenging lesson for me and it was difficult initially as I had this notion of control when I was doing the 9-5 back in Australia.
But what I have since learnt is that there is no control.
No one knows what is happening next year, next week, tomorrow. We think we do as we live each day as we did the last.
Repetition isn’t control - it is safe.
For this adventure to happen we had to take that leap, that step through our fears to move forward - And we do it every day.
The only control that we have had on this adventure is to choose to be on it, to choose to experience something different, to choose to be comfortable with letting go of control.
If we don’t have control of tomorrow, we might as well be doing something we love and enjoy today: Live immediately.
