People have the 7 years itch, I had the five. Regardless what your number is, I believe everyone at some point in their lives would have it. It is the sudden sort of feeling at the back of your mind, nagging at you, “What are you doing with your life? Where are you going? Why the rush? Is there an end to this? Are you at the means to an end or at the end itself? If not then where? And when you’re finally there then what?”. All these random thoughts run through my second mind all the time.

The First Mind

We all live through day by day with our first mind. The mind that got you from point A to point B, your home to your office, your now to later. Most people think that your first mind is the right mind or rather the only mind, but think about it, isn’t this more to a mindless mind? A routine is mindless to me. I can get to office from home without actually knowing how I got myself there in the first place. And that to me is my mindless first mind. But I wouldn’t say that the first mind is useless. It is after all still your mind, it is something you build out of your real mind to handle the little nitty gritty of life, it is, in essence, the manifestation of yourself and then set to auto mode so that you concentrate on the truly important things, which runs in your second mind.

The Second Mind – Me

Second mind, on the other hand, is the real mind. At least to me that is. It normally makes me think laterally. It normally provokes me to think. It is a mind that comes from deep within, the inner voice and the true me in meditation. Some people call it the heart. Some people call it the unconscious mind and some call it the soul. As for me, I call it just me.

Sometimes it pushes me to do some things out of the norm. Sometimes it would make itself really clear and all of sudden I would feel the power of the now. I would suddenly feel myself very much in the presence, every little detail of me and surrounding becomes vividly clear. All of sudden, I am really living. Everything becomes beautiful and meaningful, I would then feel the real sense of being. I smile, and just be.

Why travel?

And that my friend, I would call it truly living. For now, I found that traveling is my channel to truly living. When I travel, I would be completely in the now. I cannot just let myself run on my auto first mind. I would constantly be engaged within myself. My curiosity nature would keep me on my toes, keep my eyes wide open and my second mind fully engage in absorbing everything. In this sense, traveling can be liberating and enlightening for me.

Scratch the Itch

So I have caught the n-years itch bug. For mine, it caught me at my fifth year of working. My second mind is not that happy anymore for taking the backseat for such a long time. So off I will go in a month’s time to scratch that itch. I will be apart from my family and friends, put on halt a promising career, leave my apartment and my car behind, to travel around the world in several places, letting my second mind take on the steering of the wheel.

For now, there seems to be an end, I would be back in 100 days, but who knows how deep the itch is. Nevertheless, I believe, this would be one hell of a ride, and it will lead me to where I am supposed to go, and to become who I am supposed to be. For once again, I will go back to basics, to who I have been, a dreamer who now would be living her dreams.