A Balancing Act

I’m fairly certain I’m not alone in the fact that I am constantly attempting to balance what I enjoy doing, with what I am more or less forced to do. Just being a human is expensive. Paying for rent, fuel, utilities, food, etc. isn’t cheap, not to mention trying to be responsible by having health insurance, investing money for my future, and looking into purchasing a house. Life isn’t cheap. So naturally I’m forced to be working in a job that pays my bills.

I’m lucky enough to have a job that I thoroughly enjoy. Every job likely has negatives and mine is no exception, but despite the downsides I enjoy being around the people I work with, and using my creativity in order to tell stories that help people. Not everyone can say they get up in the morning happy about the job they will be going to that day, and I do not take that for granted in any way. However…

While I love my work, and love having creative freedom in that work, there’s a part of me that isn’t totally fulfilled by it. This lack of fulfillment seems to be addressed in the other things I do with my time. Some people would call them a hobby, some may consider it a side hustle. I think of it as more of the life I’m striving to build for myself. Making a conscious effort to build a life of freedom for myself. Freedom to create exactly what I am inspired to create rather than being given an assignment. Freedom to not be tied to a single location.

This is where the balancing comes in. Trying to balance making YouTube videos and taking landscape photos with the meetings, events, and assignments for work is no easy task. Consistency on YouTube is not easy in and of itself, but to try to maintain that while also fulfilling all my duties at work makes it even more stressful.

I’m not sure there’s any good way to balance the two without working yourself into burnout. Obviously, there are a few tricks and strategies involved in making it a bit easier. For instance, I often plan out what videos I will make each month at the beginning of the month. That way if I have an especially busy week at work I can prepare for that by record and editing my video for that week ahead of time. But sometimes that’s not even enough, because after long hours at work sometimes the last thing I want to do is put on a presentable face and point a camera at myself.

I really don’t have an answer… I don’t know what to do. An obvious way to get rid of this strife is by quitting my job and focusing solely on YouTube. But I’m nowhere near being able to make that financially feasible, so the job stays. I just have to be conscious of my time and what I spend my hours working on, and likely have to accept the fact that I have to work day and night, weekdays and weekends, for months - and maybe years - to be able to balance these things successfully.

Thumbnail photo: Matt Van Swol (2017)

The Road Less Traveled

Because of where Pogradec is situated, to get to the southern parts of Albania there are two options. You can go north, to Elbasan then across the center of the country (where there aren’t any mountains) and then down a relatively new highway to the south. According to Google, it would take about four and a half hours. The second option is to go south along SH75, a windy, pot-hole filled road that is typically about one and a half lanes wide. It skirts the border of Greece, while passing by village after village and through the mountains in the south. It typically takes closer to five hours, if not more. If you know me, you know which road I take.

Driving this route had me thinking about an article I published a few weeks ago about why, if you’re visiting Albania, you should get outside of Tirana. More broadly, though, the kind of traveling I’ve fallen in love with. Granted, it would be a much easier, simpler, and smoother drive to go the northern route. It’s the route that almost everyone takes to get to Gjirokaster, and has some nice views along the way. It’s also the route that has exactly what you would expect along the way. That’s not me. Why take the highway when a more exciting route exists? Not only that, a route that you’re not quite sure what the next turn will bring. One that the majority of people in Albania have never been on, nor ever want to try. That sounds like a real adventure.

As I think about these two routes in terms of my life as a whole, it’s a fitting example. Although some day to day things can get monotonous, I like to think that my life is far from ordinary. When I think about the fact that my monotony is happening in this tiny country on the Adriatic Sea, I wouldn’t change it for the world. Little decisions throughout my life and my travels - like taking the road that other people wouldn’t want to just to see what’s along that journey - has shaped and changed my entire existence.

After all, didn’t Robert Frost say “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” If I could go back to my 16 year old self sitting in American Literature class and show him this practical example of these poetic words, I would have immediately understood.  

It Only Takes One

I heard a quote one time that went something like this:

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“One person can change the whole world for the better, as long as they don't give a damn who gets the credit.”

-Unknown

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As you can see, I don’t know who said it. I don’t remember where I heard the quote, and throughout the research I did I was unable to find who originally said it. In either case, I think it rings true, but not quite in the same ways I used to think.

When I first heard the quote my first thinking was changing the entire world, as in every single person, place, and thing. But if you think at a much smaller scale, the impact of this idea can become so much greater. If you think in terms of how a country could change, or even a community. Not only that, the quote says “change the whole world for the better.” Better is relative. It doesn’t say save the world, or even just change the world. Those three little words at the end of that sentence make a huge difference. Changing something for the better doesn’t mean every aspect of it has been flipped, just that it is headed in the right direction.

When I started making YouTube videos in Albania I had one distinct goal: To change the world’s perception of Albania. The hope was that by showing what the people, culture, and landscapes were actually like, we could move away from the stigma of Albania that was created through the help of films like Taken. I thought that I would get famous by being the guy who is showing the world Albania. As it turns out, I gained a bit of fame and a was noticed for a short time, but it quickly faded when the next foreigner with a bigger following than me decided to come through the country. As first I would get a bit annoyed thinking, “I have been putting in the time in this country, why does that person get the recognition that I deserve.” And then, the quote came back to my mind; “…as long as they don’t give a damn who gets the credit.” I thought about my goal for my videos from when I started, and realized that my goal could be accomplished even if it wasn’t me being the face of it. I have no way of proving this, but there’s a good chance that my videos spurred someone to come visit Albania, which inspired someone else, which moved another foreigner, each of them with bigger influences than the last. Slowly, my goal is being accomplished, and I will likely never be thought of in it. I have helped to change this tiny world, now I need to stop giving a damn who gets the credit.

So now, in a similar vein, we come to my friend Sam, who also happens to be my supervisor at the nonprofit I work for. Sam has been devising a new permaculture project on a small plot of land nearby our campus. Agriculture is a big part of the Albanian livelihood and Sam hopes to figure out a way that the farmers around the country can shift from their monoculture farming to more of a polyculture practice. He has been doing small experiments with the plot he’s working on, in order to find the best methods for this climate and environment. His goal is not to be known as a revolutionary farmer in Albania, but rather to help make a small change in agriculture in this region that could vastly impact the entire world of the farmers that live here.

Even if only a dozen people have their perceptions of Albania changed through my videos, or the stories of people that I’ve inspired to come here, this country’s world has been changed for the better. Even if only two or three farmers see Sam’s practices, decide to give it a shot on their own farms, and realize how fruitful it can be, that is changing the world of those two or three farmers - and potentially their descendants for generations - for the better.

Off the Beaten Path

Since coming to Albania for the very first time in 2017, my eyes were opened. It was a country I’d not heard of before, and honestly had to Google where it even was before getting on the flight. But upon arriving not only did I fall in love with the country, I fell in love with this new way of traveling. The kind of traveling where you skip over the places that you see all over the internet, you don’t seek out the spots that you’ve seen on Instagram. Instead, you put yourself as far away from those places as you can. You look for the beauty in the places that are overlooked, or underrated.

Since coming to Albania, my desire to go to well-known countries is slowly diminishing. I want to visit those kinds of places that are so obscure that I have to look on Google Maps to even find out where they are. Not only that, upon arriving in those countries, I want to get lost in their cultures, in the countrysides.

When people tell me they visited Albania, but didn’t even leave the capital city it almost makes me cringe. Were it not for the airport being there, I could very happily live my entire existence in Albania without setting foot in Tirana. Not because I despise Tirana, but because to me the beauty of traveling and living in another country comes in the differences. In Tirana, many people will speak English, so communicating would be too easy. In Tirana, there are shopping malls much like the ones I would find back in the United States. They have Burger King, KFC, and rumor has it that Pizza Hut will be opening soon. But that’s not why I moved outside of the United States. I didn’t pack my life into a few suitcases just to find my little comfort bubble under the rule of a different government.

When people ask me what they should do in Albania, my first answer is almost always to leave Tirana. Sure, it has its uniqueness from other big cities around the world, but at their core all big cities are more or less the same. The charm of Albania - and likely many other countries - comes in the people, the cultures, the traditions… Many of which are dwindling in the capital. It is so quickly becoming westernized that it’s becoming harder and harder to find true Albania in it. Pockets of it exist, sure, but if you want to go swimming would you rather splash from one puddle to the next or jump, headfirst into the deep end of the pool?

Weather

To someone who has spent time reading my website, or watching my videos, it will come as no surprise that I have had struggles with my mental health. Honestly, I’m sure I’m not alone in that by any stretch. I would even venture to say that at some point in their life everyone will wrestle with their mental health in some capacity, some more severe than others. However, what I’ve been making a more conscious effort to do over the past few years is pinpoint the triggers that cause changes in my mental health, whether that be positively or negatively.

Throughout my life, I have lived in a variety of different places and climates ranging from the overcast, dark winters of north Idaho to the seemingly perfect, sunny every day weather of the Hawaiian Islands. Without a doubt, one of the things that is guaranteed to affect my mood more than anything is weather. I know many people suffer from seasonal affective disorder, and while my experiences with weather doesn’t reach that level, it was significant enough for me to take note of.

I never noticed it during the Idaho winters until I moved away and then returned to visit. The days, weeks, or sometimes even months of seemingly endless overcast days was too much for me to handle. I could deal with the cold, or the thick blanket of snow, but not even seeing the sun would wear on me. And still does.

The sun, and its warmth, pulls me out of my bed in the mornings. It motivates me to leave the house. The heat on my skin makes me feel alive. On the flip side of that, when I wake up and see gray clouds outside of my window I’m far more likely to roll over and try to get five more minutes. As you would expect this can quickly become a problem, and destroy any kind of productivity for the rest of the day. Luckily for me, I now live in a place where this happens infrequently.

Albania, on average, has about 300 days on sunshine per year. That doesn’t mean it’s always warm and “perfect” weather like Hawaii is, but the sun is shining. It might be windy, or cold, or even a bit cloudy, but the sun is shining. And even if I have to wrap myself up in two sweatshirts, feeling the sun on my face keeps me balanced.

Why I Travel

It is my firm belief that everyone travels for some of the same reasons. However, it is also my firm belief that everyone travels for some different reasons. When I really sit down and pick through all the thoughts in my head I can think of countless reasons that I enjoy traveling, some of them more typical than others.

Like so many people, exploring new places is a prominent reason for me. Seeing things for the first time with my own eyes, despite never being able to be the first to discover them. Learning about new and different cultures. Broadening my experiences and knowledge so that I can better understand myself, my fellow man, and everything around us. Pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone. To grow as people we must be pushed, and the easiest way to do that is to push ourselves. Tasting new foods, hiking different trails, feeling the vibes of a city we have never been to… The list of reasons we can all relate to could go on forever. But, honestly, those all feel like the easy answers. They feel like something I would say in order to avoid diving into the real reasons…

For a long time, traveling felt like the only way I could feel appreciated. I would often choose traveling alone and meeting new people over diving deeper into preexisting relationships with friends. The depth scared me, and it seemed like if someone saw who I really was they wouldn’t come back. It happened a few times, so it seemed like a logical reason to go off in search of new acquaintances in order to protect myself from the potential hurt of being let down yet again. People seemed to enjoy talking to me at first but without a doubt, many decided their life would be better without me in it. Few cared to be loyal through my rough patches. So, I traveled in order to feel loved, even if it was only for a single conversation at a time.

Things have changed, however. Over the years I have moved into a place where I crave depth over breadth in my friendships. I have moved on from fair-weathered friends, and not shied away from showing my true self. If they don’t want to accept that, so be it, but I’m not going to run from it any longer. Life is too short.

So now, I tend to fall back to the typical reasons for travel, but with new eyes. Realizing that it could be an escape, yet not letting it be that. I could keep these experiences and wonders for myself, but that starts to feel selfish. There are wonders out there that I have been blessed to see and others have not. So I have places to show. There are adventures that I have been gifted with. So I have experience to share. There are places that are overlooked, and unknown, with some of the kindest and most generous people I’ve ever known. So I have stories to tell. 

And that, is why I travel.

Motivation vs. Discipline

When it comes to habit building, I’ve never been the best. I get excited about something and jump into it enthusiastically. The problem arises when I have to continue that thing day after day after day. Habits aren’t built overnight, in order to make something into a habit you have to commit to doing that on a consistent basis.

I’ve always relied on motivation to do things; motivation to accomplish the goal I set for myself, motivation to get better at something, motivation to put myself in a situation to succeed. I would lift weights when I felt motivated to do it. I would make videos when I felt inspired. I would take photos when the situation was right and felt good. But motivation runs out. Whether it was a video getting fewer views, a photo not coming out the way I had envisioned it, or playing poorly in a basketball game, there were constant things that would deter my motivation. Which, as you’d expect, would result in not practicing that skill for days, weeks, and sometimes even months. I knew things would never work for me if I always relied on motivation, but I wasn’t sure where else to look.

In the video I made for my 30th birthday I asked my older siblings to give any words of wisdom they may have for me as I turned 30. One of the things my brother, Jordan, said really struck me:

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“Discipline, self-discipline, will get you to wherever you want to go, no matter where it is. Whatever you want to do in your life, wherever you want to go, whatever you want your life to look like… Discipline will get you there. A little increment every day, gets you to where you want to go.”

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This didn’t stand out to me because I had never thought of it, but rather because this was what I was trying to implement into my life. I was making a conscious effort to be a more disciplined person. So when I received a voice note from Jordan that affirmed what I had already been trying to make common practice, I doubled down.

There’s a popular YouTuber that I watch frequently, Matt D’Avella, who talks a lot about self-improvement and habit building. One of the things that he has mentioned time and time again through his videos is what he calls the Two-Day Rule. Simply put, the Two-Day Rule is that if you are trying to build a habit, you do not allow yourself to take two consecutive days off. It’s virtually impossible to do something every single day without fail, so if you give yourself enough grace to take one day off, force yourself to dive back into things the next day.

As I’ve been making an effort to train myself to become a more disciplined person, I have tried to implement this rule. When I don’t feel well enough to go to the gym, I give myself a break on the condition that I go back tomorrow - no excuses. It has helped me develop a healthy relationship with the habits that I’m trying to build and prevented me from burning out. 

I apply the same thought process into creative endeavors. Whether it’s video, photos, or writing I force myself to do something creative every day that I can. And if a day comes and goes and I can’t do it… take a beat, breathe, and get back to it tomorrow.

Alone

I’ve spent a large portion of my life alone. I don’t necessarily mean that I’m completely by myself, but if there are people around, I don’t know them. Even before the last few years have forced so many people into isolation, I was trying to learn to be okay with just myself. From roadtrips through New Zealand, train rides across France, or hiking in remote corners of Iceland I’ve worked on how to thrive on my own.

Don’t take this as me complaining, or whining that I am lonely, because neither of those things are the case. I’ve come to appreciate being alone, sometimes to a fault. Maybe it’s coming from big family, or maybe it has slowly been growing in me since being an 18 year old packing my life up and moving across the United States to somewhere that I knew virtually no one. Wherever it started, becoming comfortable being alone was one of the best things for my life.

Lookout Mountain, GA, USA {2018}

Over the course of my life I’ve been to almost three dozen countries. If I hadn’t been willing to travel alone, that would have never happened. Since graduating from college I have moved my entire life across multiple oceans, often to places where I knew fewer than five people. If I hadn’t been comfortable being alone, I would have been miserable. In the three and a half years I’ve been in Albania, I’ve made almost 50 videos about my life here. If I hadn’t been able to work on those alone, I would be in a far difference place in my career. It all comes down to one thing, not being afraid of my own company.

Somewhere in Iceland {2017}

Not being afraid of my own company does not mean that I hate being around other people. When I take trips I am often looking for someone to join me. Experiences are more fun when you can share them with others. Reminiscing is far more fun when you can text someone and say; “Remember that rainy night in Cancun when a bus drove through a puddle and the splash completely engulfed you?” As I get older, I’m realizing this more and more. I’m far less likely to hop on a plane - or in my van - and head to somewhere random without someone else I know involved in the trip.

However, in my wanderings around Albania it’s rare to find someone. Those who are willing rarely have the time, and those with the time rarely have the willingness. So for the foreseeable future, I will have to tap back into what led me here in the first place.

But again, I’m not complaining. Being alone is how I got myself to this point. I owe my career to being able to work alone, without someone pushing me. I owe my mental health to being alone, giving myself time and space to process. I owe most of my accomplished goals to being alone. So I say bring it on.