I am ambitious, but I am not entirely career focused.
I love my family, but I can’t say I want to spend my holiday time with them.
My preference to travel over anything else has cost me a few pay rises and family weddings and birthdays, and while my friends are climbing the career ladder I am staying still, doing the same level of job getting the same level of pay.
And I like it this way.
The definition of Dromomania is ‘a passion for wandering, traveling; and the uncontrollable impulse or desire to wander or travel’, and this impulse, this desire, sometimes makes me walk over to my manager and say “I am taking the next three months off”.
It’s not that I don’t desire to be in a higher position one day, to get paid more, and to climb that ladder like everyone else; it’s not that I don’t want to see my family: my travel plans just somehow, always get in the way.
Ok, so it doesn’t help when I am planning trips every single waking hour, but not all Dromomaniacs are like me.
There are some that deal with this better than I do, and can juggle between having a brilliant career in photography/writing while still keeping their families happy by showing up to birthdays and anniversaries on time.
Unfortunately, I am stuck. I am stuck being half a free-spirited soul that just wants to fly away, and half a corporate woman who really should be aiming to break that glass ceiling, ‘Devil Wears Prada’ style.
Yet, every time I walk past a travel agent, every time I watch another travel related documentary on TV, I start to plot another getaway.
It doesn’t matter if it is great-aunt Leila’s birthday next month; and I don’t care if it’s another Chinese New Year that I won’t be spending with the parents. Cousins getting married? Even that’s not enough to keep me.
The lure of the unknown, the excitement of a different place and the idea of travel completely draws me from all the things I should do, into the one very thing that makes me happy but ruins it for everyone else: travel.
Call me a bad friend if you want; a bad daughter/sister/wife/employee. There is one thing that is certain: I always bring back the perfect souvenirs.
What have you sacrificed for your love of travel? Or maybe you feel like you’ve got it all in perfect balance? Tell us how you do it in the comments below!
