The credit card’s been imprinted; the dates are confirmed. Finally, after months of uncertainty, our tickets for Asia have been booked. While this won’t be the life-altering, pan-Asian circuit we had originally envisioned, it’ll be over 3 months of education, recreation, and galavanting in interesting southeast-Asian locales, and these days we’re definitely thankful for what we can manage. We’ve yet to lock down exactly which countries will be on the itinerary, but at least our boundary conditions are set: takeoff Jan 3rd to Hong Kong, return Apr 18th from same.

Years ago the world represented an endless continuum of opportunities to learn, connect and contribute. Lately, having settled into this comfortable, mundane suburban Western existence riddled with traffic congestion, politics and “responsibilities”, I feel like we’ve completely lost touch with reality: the reality we thought we’d had such a good handle on in our early 20s; the one we’d sworn never to lose sight of.

This trip, like any move away from familiar surrounds, represents a chance to find that thing we’d forgotten we’ve been looking for: perspective. But hey, how can anyone but a fool look for epiphanies and expect to find any? We’ll just go, and see what happens. And if our way to finding Purpose takes us through some nice sandy beaches, who are we to argue?