I hate that phrase.
As if my life happened on accident. As if it's luck that I've been traveling for four months. As if a leprachaun himself must have found me and given me a pot of gold to do whatever I pleased.
"You're so lucky."
I won't give those who say it too much grief though. I think deep down most of them know that it's not luck. But by George, please pick another phrase to use. Isn't that what language is here for?
But then again I won't let them off the hook. A good friend of mine discussed this with me the other day. "You're so lucky" is more than a fuzzy statement, it's an excuse.
"You're so lucky" puts a wall between yourself and what you really want to do. It's this "I'm jealous but I couldn't do it anyway," moment. Shifting the blame from yourself onto me. Swimming inside your comfort zone, ignoring the ladder in the corner.
"You're so lucky," brainwashes you. "I can't do that because of my job, or my family, or school."
Nonsense.
The reality is that there's nothing standing between you and a life where you wake up feeling lucky. You're just too scared to chase it.
Behind all my "luck" was hours of hard work. Behind the hard work was an insatiable fear that I will never live as if I'm lucky. That I'll be stuck in my hometown and never see the world and never really live.
I'm not sitting in a cafe in Denver because I'm lucky. I didn't get to see Yellowstone National Park because I was lucky. I won't get to see Europe in the future because I'll get lucky. I'll get to do it because I charted my course and got to work.
I had weeks as a freelancer where I made less than $200. I had weeks where I was receiving bountiful amounts of help. All while my friends got their full-time jobs and stayed at home and chose a comfortable life.
And a comfortable life is fine. But don't you dare say I got lucky. That demeans all of my hard work to get here. That demeans the incredible struggles I had and still have on a daily basis.
I don't know whether I'll ever really make it as a travel blogger, but one thing's for sure, I won't make it because of luck.
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