A Leap of Faith

This tuesday I'll be flying into South Korea, and at present, I have nowhere to stay. I'll be staying for 5 days, and although I should be fine on food and other expenses, it's unlikely that I'm going to have enough for a hotel. (I need to save most of my money to survive the 2 1/2 months after that while I'm waiting for my new Japanese visa to process). As such, I'm simply going to have to get there and figure it out as I go.

Looking back, years ago, the idea of doing this would have been daunting, but if there's one thing I've come to realize, it's that winging your way through situations such as these are just as big a part of success as having plans and goals.

Robert Kiyosaki, (a Self-made millionaire from Hawaii) once said, "The only thing more dangerous than risk, is never learning how to manage it." and after years of taking leaps of faith (much like this one), I've come to agree with him.

Granted, that's not to say that I've 'landed on the other side' with every leap. At times, I've fallen like a rock. Take for example when I went to Thailand to model, got drugged on my second night there, jacked for my wallet and gold chain and left on the street. Any of you guys remember that one? What a disaster that was! But it was also a lesson learned: No more cups of 'coffee' from strange women the middle of the night when you're not sober!

That also isn't to say that when I do 'land on the other side' that I usually do it safely. More often than not, when I do land, I trip, stumble, and grid to a screeching halt on my face. BUT the fact of the matter is, when I stand up, bloody and bruised as I may be, I'm still on the other side, and that's all that really matters. That's what it's all about. In so much as all the books I've read have told me, no one ever achieves great success in their lifetimes without getting beaten up in the process. Why? Because the leaps of faith and the mistakes that you make along the way, are simply how you learn. And more importantly, the 'battle scars' that they leave you with is how you retain what you learn. You don't grow from the mistakes with no consequence. You grow from the ones that hurt. I learned that much from ring fighting. Beyond that however, when you succeed, it's really truly your success, because you can know in your heart that no one gave it to you. You earned it by having the courage to try, and by putting in the work to make it happen. And it's that feeling that makes the effort so worth it. Wish me luck. If I fail, and end up spending a week of my life sleeping on the street, then as the Tralfamadorians would say, "So it goes."

PS. For those of you of you who liked this blog, I wrote extensively in my other blog, "The Opinionated Traveler" just click on 'Success, Suicide, and Nature Finding Balance'

Recommended Reading on taking leaps of faith: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Recommended Reading on Tralfamadorians: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut