[@Coinsreporter’s writing prompt: Success is variable from person to person]

Success is a loaded term. It conjures up the Four Horsemen of Doom: Fame, Fortune, Status, and Power. It makes you measure your progress against these conventional markers and feel inadequate when your life is just an insignificant blip compared to your peers’ lives.

I have always resisted basing my self-worth on external validation. And I believe I am in good authority to say this. I was a teaching scholar. If I had remained in the system, I would have moved up the ranks and become a key personnel in a school by now. Instead, I joyfully took a pay cut and took on a job as an Assistant Language Teacher under the Japan Exchange Teaching Programme.

You said what my then vice-principal said to me before I left? Although he wrote my recommendation letter, he cautioned me, “I hope you don’t come back and feel like you have missed out on life.”

It was a one-liner, but his words stuck with me. My time in Japan did set my career back. But I have no regrets. I thought I lived a successful life on my own terms. I lived and navigated a foreign land on my own. I travelled to more than 30 prefectures. I met the love of my life there (but that’s another story for another time).

However, while I have no qualms living life on a “less glamorous lane” compared to my more wealthy and achievement-riddled peers, I struggle with accepting my current existence.

Coinsreporter shared that he aims to travel around the world and promote Bitcoin education. This sounds right up my alley. Incidentally, this is what one of my closest peers and her husband did. They travelled to many countries with their two kids in tow.

I envy Coinsreporter. My two years of Japan interacting with people from all over the world informs me that he’s going to have such a great time. Tackling the daily triumphs and stresses of travelling. Meeting new people and finding out what rocks their boats. Waking up in the morning to a fresh slate every day - who knows what life will bring?

I don’t mind dropping everything to travel around with my kids. However, for better or for worse, I’m married to someone who is rather grounded. She would be stressed out not knowing what to expect every day. My enthusiasm for the unknown would be dampened if I know that she’s stressed out. So I remain resolutely rooted in my homeland.

Yesterday, I took my two kids out on a walk. We explored a different part of the neighborhood that they have not been to yet. It was a route I had walked many times before, but it felt fresh. I took a photo of my boy - still obsessed with his makeshift lion dance costume - to the school where I had taught at previously.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that my physical being may feel stuck, but my spirit of adventure needn’t be. Tomorrow, I need to take my boy to collect his new passport. I could take him to new places he has never been to before. That will be a successful day for me. I just got to express my wanderlust in new ways.

50% of the sats generated here go towards funding @Coinsreporter’s trip.