Off the Map

Off the Map

I started this blog as a way to stay in touch with family and friends during my epic year studying business abroad in Germany in 2004-2005. I later used it to reflect on my transition from academic to corporate life. Today marks the first post in what will become a 12 month chronicle of my latest adventure...

6 days time will find me on the grueling 25 hour route from Brisbane to Frankfurt, where I will be sponsored by my business consultancy to join a pro bono publico project working with a global NGO (non-governmental organisation). Over the coming year I will live and travel all over the world, rolling out a donor management programme to a wave of country head offices.

This is my third international move in the last 5 years and while I'm reaping the benefits of that experience, I know enough to know that I've no idea what lies in store. Moving abroad brings a certain rush - much like the rush you felt when looking ahead at the possibility of your life as a high school kid. Back then, you could be anybody or anything. Changing global lanes gives the old dog a swift motivational kick to learn that new trick. All you need to decide is whether you'd rather learn to sit, high-five, or roll-over & play dead.

"Why do we feel sorry for people who can't travel? Because, unable to expand externally, they are not able to expand internally either, they can't multiply and so they are deprived of the possibility of undertaking expansive excursions in themselves and discovering who and what else they could have become."
- Pascal Mercier, "Night Train to Lisbon"

posted by Jason @ 8:41 am