The Audacity of Possibility

"Hey! This may sound crazy...but would you want to be my travel buddy on a trip to Portugal"?

I sent this message to a someone whom I had, to that point, only known as a box inside of a Zoom screen of an online course of which we both were team members located almost 800 miles apart. We had actually planned to meet up for the first time in mid-October for coffee or something. However, here I was sending this message at the end of August for a trip I was planning to take in just about four weeks time. Who the heck is audacious enough to make this kind of request?! More audaciously, who would agree to this request?! As it happens, we both were audacious enough for this scenario.

Now seriously, I don't think anyone would expect something of this sort from me. Least of all, I would not expect this of myself. That's not the way I run my life. First of all, I am not a person who makes requests of others to make my life better. I am not really worthy of that kind of generosity. I'm not at all good enough for someone to want to do anything with me.

Secondly, I am shy! I would much rather be in the background than try to attract attention to myself. I don't make bold moves. There are many cooler people all around me who are the go getters. I get things done...but quietly. I always am concerned about [in Urdu] "log kya bolaingay". ie, what will people say about me if I do anything out of the ordinary. Almost as importantly, I don't want to be the target of "no", probably also accompanied by laughter at me...not with me.

Yet, after four years (!!) of taking courses, training myself and others, through a remarkable program in the Curriculum for Living in Landmark, that first part is my act, The second is my racket. Nothing in my life is going to change until I can get past myself; until I can create the possibility of who I am going to be and how I am going to live.

So, yes, I decided to create a trip where the memories are not just crammed in my own head and my digital photo gallery. I am going to create memories that are shared with someone else. In this case someone who has the literary eloquence to create short but beautiful epics akin to my favorite vikings and their eddas of their journeys. I definitely deserve to eat better meals than my endless doner kebabs to avoid sitting alone in restaurants. On this trip….boy, did we eat good! No more driving around new sights and talking to myself about what a cool place I'm in. No! This trip, we created conversation. More importantly we created friendship out of pixels on a screen.

I am creating the possibility of life as a journey. A journey that I am happy to lead from the front or side-by-side with others. That's audacious!