Everything I Thought I Was & What I Came to Be

EVERYTHING I THOUGHT

I WAS & WHAT I CAME TO BE

Paul Nijar

Copyright © 2014 by Paul Nijar.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014910087

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4990-3070-9

Softcover   978-1-4990-3069-3

eBook   978-1-4990-3071-6

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Rev. date: 05/30/2014

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Metamorphosis

My Blueprints

Suitcase Or Backpack?

Your Puzzle Peace

Those Darn Reruns

Struggling With School

Struggling With Driving

Struggling With The Law

Struggling To Start Anew

Peace Within The Struggle

A Hard Lesson

All By Myself

We Need Each Other

Fighting For Independence

We Can’t Be Alone

Aha!

To Be Or Not To Be

When Nature Calls, It Sings!

Love Thyself

Behold Nature’s Wisdom

Seeing With The Heart Not The Eyes

Bare Your Sole

Say Cheese!

The Beauty Of The Beast

A Chinese Medicine Perspective

Anger Is Your Ally

Racing Against Time With The Ego

Words Speak Lies While Emotions Speak Truth

That’s Amore

Loving Me

What Does Love Look Like?

Love Creates

A Spiritual Gift …

The Present

The Old Ball And Chain

Physical Attachment

Emotional Attachment

Attachment To Our Visions

Attachment To Our Schedules

Expiry Date

Motivation

Sex

Quick Euphoria

I Feel Nothing

Energetic Entanglement

Removing Wall

A Quick Escape

Making Love

Sexual Healing

Conserving Sexual Energy

Not Meant To Last

Conversing With Consciousness On Love

A Work In Progress

Stand Straight! Chest Out! Suck In That Gut!

Mirror Mirror

The False Reflection

Am I Good Enough?

The Illusion Of Material Happiness

So You Think You’re A Big Shot?

Man Vs. Nature

Man Vs. God

What Did You Call Me?

Shhhhhh!

I’ve Sprung A Leak!

Objects In The Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Fighting With Clutter And Procrastination

The Lesson Gets Unmasked

Expanding Further On These Lessons

Put Your Dukes Up!

Fact Or Fiction

Opinion Vs. Insight

Our Perceptions

My Achy Breaky Heart

Be Like Water

Door A Or Door B

Respond Or React

Yes! No! Maybe So!

Why You And Not Me?

A Peace Of Me

Pass The Light

My Time In La-La Land

Manifesting Your Dreams

Your Tool Box Of Goodies

A War Within

Winning The Battle

Timing For Success

Don’t Be A Scaredy-Cat

Beating Fear

A Bit Of A Stretch

The Ego Has Landed

Fear And Insecurity

Unmasking The Ego

Size Matters

Have A Good Day

Are We There Yet?

What Is The Meaning Of Life?

What Is Life?

Seeking Answers Through Meditation

Happiness In Life Is A Choice

What’s The Purpose Of Life?

Sorting Out Karma

Can’t Teach Old Dogs New Tricks

Death Is The Road To Awe

Soul Food

Tunnel Vision

Can You Spare Any Change?

Positivity 101

Don’t Worry Be …

Positive

Positive Conditioning

The Great Egyptian Paradigms

A Lesson Of Gold

Fair And Judgment

Rise And Shine

Rest In Peace

Fetal Position

Death Position

I Surrender

Bless You

Goo Goo Gah God

A Fresh Glass

We All Need An Abundance Of R And R

Numero Uno

What’s Mine Is Yours And What’s Yours Is Mine

Use The Force

The Chakras

Dr. You

Breathing For Happy Health

Calming The Mind

Breathing Correctly

Respect Your Breath!

Calming The Body

Woos Ahh

Ujjayi Breath

Om My Gosh

The Meditation Warm-Up

Meditation For Dummies

Time To Meditate

Stilling The Body

Stilling The Mind

Meditation University

Investing In Meditation

Meditation Journey

I Am Meditation

I Solemnly Swear

A Candid Interview With Myself

Vision Board

Put Into Action

Oh My Mantra! Love, Laugh, Share

Conclusion

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It has long been a dream of mine to put a compilation of my understanding and knowledge from my life experiences into a book. I have been blessed in my life to have met and to be surrounded by such amazing influential people that have helped in shaping the person I am right now. The inspirations they offered was pivotal in helping me regain my footing in understanding the process of life.

Many of us fall on paths which present similar struggles that we must face. I hope that my story will help the reader in some way for them to find their way in their life. I want to emphasize something that really consumed me in much of my life, and that is that it is okay to make mistakes. With all the mistakes we make in life, we are always fully capable in achieving everything we desire. We are never lost in life, for every place we visit is all a part of our unique adventures that tell the tales of our journey. Giving yourself the time and patience you need to allow for everything to fall into place is fundamental in finding peace within all those mistakes. Being able to forgive myself for those mistakes is something that has such a positive impact in my spiritual awakening.

This book is dedicated to my loving family who shows me so much support and unconditional love. My family taught me so much patience, persistence, and faith that I will always be grateful for. There is no other way to show them how much I love them and am grateful for everything they have taught or showed me in life other than by sharing my experiences with anyone who can benefit from them. In sharing this journey of mine, I am giving tribute and all credit to my family.

I would also like to acknowledge the Satguru Ram Singh Satsang. Without their support, guidance, and blessings, none of this could be possible. Thank you.

PROLOGUE

On my sixteenth birthday I was given a journal by a close friend of the family. At the time I thought it was an odd gift to give to a young boy. The person who gave me the journal was very spiritually attuned. She had her third eye fully opened and was fully aware of everything that was around us that we could not see. She would often tell us when we were being visited by family members who had passed over and describe them in great detail. With all the insight she would give us in regard to our auras, astral travel, meditation, and visiting spirits, we trusted the wisdom she shared with us. Upon giving me the journal, she explained to me that it would help me in getting through the hard times.

I have been writing in my journal on and off for years. As I started to write more, I decided that my emotions and perspective on life needed to be changed. Looking back at my entries, I found a lot of negativity and self-destructiveness in my way of thinking that played out in my writing. I was lost and confused, so my entries reflected this.

I believed that my job in a warehouse was the main culprit in my negative frame of mind. I decided to challenge my thoughts by expressing more positive entries. The goal of these entries was to provide me coaching toward taking on a more positive perspective in life. In my entries, I would include different reinforcement exercises that would give me assurance that my mental state was something that could be corrected and that I was, in fact, normal.

Being normal was something that I had struggled with for some time because the emotions that I was responding to in my experiences didn’t make sense to me as I felt others were not affected in the same manner by similar instances. I felt that perhaps I was more sensitive or weak-willed over other people around me.

Over time, these exercises of positive thinking challenged my thoughts more. So my journal took on a new direction; from dictating the day’s events, to positive reinforcement exercises, it now became my way to express my thoughts toward a deeper meaning and purpose of life. Rather than being a dictation, it became a mode of self-exploration. I believe in the power of positive thinking and that you become your thoughts and a product of your mantra. If I want to spark a positive change in my life, I would first need to become that change with a positive outlook.

The negative viewpoint I had on life I believe was based on two things. The first being my adolescence and the second stemming from working in a job I found unfulfilling. I have worked in a warehouse for about fourteen years now. This is not the job that I had intended for myself in my younger years, but here I am. I initially only planned to work there for two months in the summer, but I have been there ever since. During my employment there, I tried going to school to get a real career. This did not work out as I had planned. I studied marketing in college and took some other business courses. I found that studying these subjects was not very fulfilling to me. So I went back to full time work in the warehouse, hoping to make up for lost revenue after only working one day a week while in school.

With the stress school brought in to my life, I decided to go back to my martial arts roots, a place of real enjoyment for me. In 2003, I injured my right knee during my martial arts training. I had a friend in the warehouse who had just graduated from an acupuncture college. I allowed my friend to treat my injury with acupuncture needles. This was my first experience with acupuncture, and I really enjoyed it. So I decided that this was something that was a better fit for me than the marketing. I have always been into health and fitness, so I figured this was a great opportunity for a new career. I enrolled to study at a traditional Chinese medicine college. Turns out that the college I studied at was giving out fraudulent licenses, so I found myself again working full time in the warehouse.

During my time in the warehouse, I found I needed to find a way to keep my mind positive amid all the setbacks. I have been very blessed to have come from a spiritually attuned family. Growing up I would see my parents meditate daily. They would urge me to do the same and try to explain the role it plays in developing a positive mind. But being a stubborn child, I didn’t want to listen to anything they had to say. As the years progressed and I still found myself in the warehouse, I decided to start exploring meditation.

I looked toward meditation in overcoming the shame I felt from working in the warehouse. My employment there has always been like a part of me I didn’t want people to know. I went to school every day, I didn’t do drugs and rarely drank, so I couldn’t understand why I ended up working there. If I was abstaining from engaging in reckless activity, then I should be in a place where I felt empowered, but this was not the case. I always pictured myself wearing a suit to work, not steel-toe boots and a safety vest. To keep my mind from being a product of the warehouse filled with broken dreams, I started picking up self-help books in addition to meditation. The warehouse was testing my ability to stay positive throughout the daydreaming I did while working.

I have always had a knack for daydreaming. Initially, my journal served as an outlet for whatever random thoughts came to mind while daydreaming. When I decided to use my journal as a template to shape a preferred mind, my daydreams had more of a direction. They became abstract about life’s purpose and got me thinking about my positive future in an obsessive way. I started to question life and my role in it. Looking back, I was so naive and adolescent in my ways. I feel I was totally moving in the wrong direction in life. I wanted to be put on the correct path, a journey that fulfills my soul’s purpose.

It was not until 2009 that I did a major overhaul in my life. I quit drinking entirely and cut out meat and some dairy out of my diet. This was a test to shock my attachment to my current lifestyle. I wanted to do the opposite of what I had been doing previously, hence taking out meat and alcohol. I wanted to make sure that everything I was before that was negative was not who I was going to be now. My intention was to leave the bad and keep the good.

The content I wrote about in my journal was meant to reflect all the good that was happening as to further complement my positive thinking. Writing to myself was an amazing journey; a lot of the things I wrote down came from somewhere beyond myself. As soon as I settled down ready to write, words started to appear on paper. I tried to find inspiration for my writing from around my surroundings. Sometimes it could be a single word or physical expression that I see someone make that sparks a thought and imagination toward my writing. Once I hear that word, it’s enough to get me going; I start writing uncontrollably.

The topics I wrote about were related to the lessons that I was seeking at those moments. I made entries in my journal as if I was my own life coach, so when I say you it really is referring to myself. At the time of my entries, I was having an emotional battle with myself, so my entries read out like someone was talking to me. I created a conversation within these pages to push me in the right direction. As a result of my writings, I became my most loyal student. After all, as much as I talk to different people throughout my day, there is still no one I talk to more than myself through internal dialogue. I wrote to myself through a different perspective, which drove me emotionally to write initially.

Rather than trying to convince myself I had validity in feeling the way I did in a given circumstance, I wanted to write as if I was trying to convince myself of another perspective. I didn’t want to reinforce my current beliefs; value comes from seeing beyond our own understandings. There is more value in learning something new over being right. With this strategy, I was very determined to reinvent myself and move from being mentally and physically destructive to someone moving in a direction that leads to a life-fulfilling path.

In making the transformation of myself, I wanted to plan out an order of operations. Perhaps being a Virgo I needed to find order in things for them to become manageable. So I devised a four-step plan of action to get things straight in my life. I used my journal to map out how I was to make my transformation real. In the first step I wanted to trim away at all the inessentials. I had an image of myself picking away at a stone to create a fine sculpture. This is when the drinking and meat-eating came to fast halt. I wanted to drop anything that, in my opinion was not contributing toward a positive transition. The second step was to eliminate the negative mode of thinking. This mode of thinking was based on the mantra of can’t and disbelief. I always found myself second guessing things and not thinking I was capable enough to do anything I dreamed of doing. The third step was to allow myself to dream freely, with no restraints. To understand that at this moment everything is possible. I sought to challenge my limitations. I want to strive and achieve beyond all doubts. The fourth and final step was to put things into action. This includes whatever thoughts and dreams that I had, no matter how far-fetched they may have seemed.

This book is a compilation of all the thoughts, all the struggles and lessons I’ve gathered over the years through reading, writing in my journal, and speaking with people that inspired me. There are many of us who find themselves on a path of their own as well as for those who have trekked through paths similar to mine. My spiritual journey was initiated from my journal entries and then further developed from daily meditation practice. My writing and meditation served as a vital tool in answering questions that were relevant to me at a specific time in my life.

My intention of this book is not to convince or convert readers to anything; this is just insight to the transformation of myself through my spiritual journey. Maybe the reader may be inspired by my words, maybe they will agree or disagree, maybe they can relate to the things I say, maybe they can’t. This book offers a glimpse into my spiritual journey’s progression through my constant thirst for answers for the perspective I held in different situations in my life.

I seek to share my Paulosophy with others and myself as to serve as a reminder that all our lives have a divine purpose no matter how bumpy the roads become. I plan to use this book as a memento to myself on how to keep myself on track. The ideas I share and the exercises I have included are meant to remind myself of where I came from. The gained knowledge that I obtained along my spiritual journey is wealth that I seek to share with all those in need.

As I reflect back on the time I got to spend with that close family friend who gave me the journal, I can appreciate the opportunity she provided me in learning as much as I could about our spiritual existence. The time spent with her and with my journal has brought forth knowledge that would shape my future. I now wonder if she knew that the journal she gave me would have this impact to my life and to end up as a tool for a greater understanding of my spiritual role. I will always be grateful for her gift and in turn will try to offer aid to others as she did for me.

In one of my entries from 1998 I wrote, Thank you, Lynn Collins, for giving me this book. You helped me with my French homework when you were alive but now you help me with my life.

METAMORPHOSIS

This book didn’t start as a book, but rather it started off a journal. The focus of the journal was to redirect and redefine all my thoughts and perceptions that I had held at the time. There were many issues that I was dealing with in my life that was challenging my peaceful state of mind. Writing in my journal played a pivotal role in trying to bring forth the emotional and spiritual blockages that I was not addressing. Once I was able to acknowledge these blockages, I was able to guide myself through a better understanding. Writing for me is very therapeutic and liberating. It was like I was putting my deepest thoughts under the microscope and ultimately come to reasons and directions for them.

When I first started going through my past journal entries, I took notice of the negative vibe that I was projecting onto the pages. At this point I was doing more harm to myself than good, so I knew I needed to change. It was around this time in my life that I decided to engage in that major life overhaul. My last journal entry was written in my handwriting, so to initiate my self-reinvention process, I moved to writing in caps. Now looking back, the vibe and direction of the book changed immediately.

Writing in caps was a catalyst toward my transformation. Although the handwriting did possess abstract thought, the caps writing offered more clear direction based on those thoughts. The handwriting played out as a symbol of the confusing mess that was occupying my mind. The penmanship was hard to read, and the sentences revealed so much doubt. When I switched to writing in caps, it was easier to read, allowing for clear direction for change and growth. The caps also represented a metamorphosis into a new me that would provide new insight to my understanding of life.

The first question I wrote when I changed to writing in caps was What do you want from life? which coincided with my next question, What should I do with my life? For many years I struggled with these two questions. The things I had attempted to do didn’t seem to work out the way I had envisioned them to. This left me asking more questions as to what else I should be doing. If I wasn’t finding success in those other areas, then what else should I be looking into?

The understanding that I have now is that I could’ve done anything I wanted to in my life. I never understood the true potential of myself. At the time, I had a limited vision as to what I was capable of doing. The problem was not in finding a suitable career path for myself; the problem was in my question. My question of What should I do? was incorrect. Had I asked myself the question starting off with how instead of what, I would have been able to understand that we are not limited to a singular option. Starting the question off with how gives attention to the individual’s mental preparedness to tackling the task.

Over time, I was able to change my attitude to be more positive. My answer to What do you want from life? was To be the best I can be in whatever I do. Even if it is doing something that others may think is trivial. My grandfather once said, No matter what you do in life, just make sure to be the best at it, and I will be happy. Using the word how meant that I was going to put forth an effort for positivity and an intention for success in all my endeavors.

Whenever one tries their best at something, they do it with love. Happiness stems from love. This was a very strong lesson to learn. One of my journal entries that further delved into this epiphany went as follows: At the end of the day, your work and your actions are a reflection of you. When everything is gone, the only thing that remains is you. So in effect, you are the only thing that’s real in life. The jobs will change, the buildings will crumble, and your friends will go off and make their own families, so the only thing that you have to maintain is yourself. Do things with passion and love for yourself, not others, and you will lead a fulfilling life. When one does so, others become inspired and follow suit. So the answer to my question What do you want from life? became To be the best that I can be no matter what I’m doing, and in such, to inspire others.

MY BLUEPRINTS

It is very odd looking back and reading my old entries in my journal. I wrote a small contract to myself in 2007 about what I planned to do in life. Everything I wrote down is on par with what I feel is important to me today. This is an odd thing to see because there was a time in between where I was lost and confused, not knowing what to do. And it was all right there in front of me the whole time, written by my own hand. This journal of mine became a mode of communication for my soul, though I still was oblivious to it.

There are many times in life where the answers are placed in clear sight, and yet we still choose to ignore them. When you calculate the answer to a mathematical formula, you know it’s true, so you do not try to deny it. It is a fixed answer to the equation. There is no negotiation. We know the answer is right in front of us, so why do we think we cannot achieve it, like it is not the correct answer? The answer is yes, not only can you do it, but it’s what you are supposed to be doing.

Much of our lack of direction in life comes from being distracted by watching what others are doing around us. Many times we will look at other people’s failures and think we will have the same outcome. We tend to attract a lot of unnecessary stress by comparing ourselves to the people around us. This only makes our lives much more difficult as we are failing to see that we all have our own spiritual lessons we must take from our experiences. The instances we encounter are all different, and our response to them will always be different depending on our own life experiences.

In the business world, you see companies use benchmarking to compare or forecast the success of their product in the market among their competitors. Maybe this is smart business, but it is definitely not smart living. The reason for this is that we all have separate journeys. We write out our blueprints before we incarnate to this plane. So if it’s written, it is to be done. If someone else fails, this does not reflect you. Sticking to your own blueprints is the key to your success in building that strong structure of your life. The architectural design of your blueprints is specific to your journey and is an expression of your unique beauty.

I was talking to a friend at work, who shocked me with this interest in spirituality. He has had such a bad reputation for his reckless lifestyle and his sour demeanor, so it was very surprising and refreshing to have a discussion on spirituality with him. He was mentioning that everything we are doing right now is helping him create his destiny and this moment is meant to be. There is definitely truth to his words; however, I believe his understanding of our destiny may be lacking. My friend’s understanding was that we are creating our purpose in life as we go along in our everyday lives. Perhaps there is some truth to this, and I am open to this idea. However, my idea on our destiny is slightly different.

When we look at the word destiny, it refers to a journey that is already known or predetermined. So when he says he is creating his destiny now, I believe he may be overlooking something. The blueprints we write out prior to incarnating here are what lies in our destiny. We all are given free will in this lifetime, which allows us to choose how we want to fulfill our destiny. This is like when we set out to go somewhere, we know where we want to end up but have multiple routes we can take to our destination. As we map out all these alternative routes to take, our destination remains the same. These two words are so close in meaning that the word destiny may even be the root word for destination. So rather than understanding that we are creating our purpose as our days come along, I believe that we are just starting to understand our predetermined purpose as we live out our days.

Our predetermined purpose is specific to us as individuals. We share this planet together in union among each other throughout our lives, which may give reason as to why we feel our success or failure is based on the results someone else may have encountered. Even though we live so closely beside one another, the truth is that we are still so very different from even our spouses, our children, or closest friends. No matter how close we are to an individual, we are still meant to find our own way through our journey. When we compare ourselves to these close individuals, we tend to be harder on ourselves, feeling that we are less adequate than that person.

Our lives are meant to be explored in our own unique way. The struggles, along with our responses to those struggles, are meant to be specific to our personal development as a spiritual being. Within the struggles we face, we become stronger. The more difficult the struggle or obstacle, the more we have to gain. We become stronger and wiser. With the understanding that every experience we encounter is part of our spiritual journey, we come to accept our struggles more openly; we then become a spiritual warrior. A warrior fights with courage, not resistance.

Many of our struggles are crucial in helping us fulfill those experiences in our blueprints. The blueprint of my spiritual journey was put onto paper in my journal with the help of my spirit guide, a source of truth and pure love, and yet I still neglected to pay attention. We become so wrapped up in our negative thinking and egos that we fail to open ourselves up to our celestial origin or Source.

Source is a title that I use in reference to the creator of our Universe. This name resonates with me more than any other as I perceive it to be unbound by any religious connotations. I tend to use this name interchangeably with other titles like Divine Light or Universe. With all the titles I use, I am still making reference to a single source of energy that provides our existence. To me, this source of our being provides us with all the blessings we need to fulfill whatever mission we are sent here to complete. If only I had surrendered to Source and trusted the instructions I was given, I would have been on track a long time ago. But coming off track is necessary, sometimes, to appreciate the lesson once you come back on track.

One of my journal entries gave me comfort in falling off track. It reads as follows: Every part of me carries the DNA of God. I am very much a part of him; with his strength I will achieve all mentioned. With the confidence and faith of that of God himself, I will fulfill my destiny. There are no doubts. This is me for myself as a spiritual being to achieve and also for God to use in his ever hunger for experience. Everything I do is experience I need to go through for God, so he can achieve his perfection in all his divineness. Even though I wrote this, I still had self-doubt and negativity toward my mistakes, which I find to be odd. If I wrote this, one would expect me to be full of confidence and direction. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to go back and read my entries after writing them down so I could see past my mistakes.

One of my favorite playful things I would say to one of my past girlfriends is you can do no wrong. I say this usually when she was trying to decide upon two different options in something. At the time I was saying this, I meant it in a playful manner, expressing that she is perfect and without fault. But there is truth that lies within these words that applies to all our lives. Because we are all on our own spiritual journey, everything we do reflects the lessons we must learn. Every good moment that is defined by success and every bad moment we call failure. It is all golden in accordance to our life plan.

There have been many documented times where people have sought after similar things in life where some find rewards and others do not. This does not serve as a lesson to us, that if someone else fails we are to follow in the same fate. Perhaps our lesson lies in the failure while the other person’s lesson is in the reward. Beyond that single reward we see others receiving, there may be other challenges that that individual must learn from.

I remember the wondering eyes we had as kids while writing tests in school. Our teachers would tell us to keep our eyes on our own paper. The test was an examination into our own knowledge, not our neighbors’. This same rule should be applied to our lives. Many of my doubts came from watching other people do something and thinking to myself that I could not measure up to their level of ability. Many times I would carry this doubt prior to even trying. This in itself is the failure I was being fearful of.

I wanted to challenge myself to have the confidence I needed to move forth in my life. I looked toward my journal and made this entry as an attempt. You are a creator of everything around you. As you are born from the ‘Divine,’ you have the same power to create. You create all your thoughts, your emotions, your group of friends, your image. With this knowledge, one should be void of any doubt but should put faith in themselves and trust in the ‘Divine Light’ because you carry that power with you always.

The above entry allowed me to see the higher purpose of my life, that there are no mistakes. This allowed me to be more forgiving toward myself, understanding that my life is unfolding in a way it is intended to. I was able to understand that everything I do is part of my experience and is necessary for my development. Every trial I was to go through in life was simply another experience based on the blueprints I wrote for myself. In truth, we can do no wrong, just as I used to mention to that girlfriend.

SUITCASE OR BACKPACK?

Aside from success or failure, different people choose to travel paths in lives that are unique to their spiritual journey. Some of my journal reflects times in my life where I struggled between the most effective lifestyle which best complemented an ideal character for me. I based my analysis on different lifestyles that I saw people living. I wanted to know which one would have a greater benefit to my soul in accomplishing everything I need to get done in this lifetime. I have met many types of people who I categorize as either luggage carriers or backpackers. They live lives that are so different from one another, and yet they both are displaying strength and resilience in life.

The luggage carriers worked in big companies with great titles next to their names. They displayed so much strength and knowledge of their field. Their lives seemed to be about status and security. They stand tall in large crowds, emanating so much confidence. These luggage carriers seemed to know everyone they needed to know to add to the perks they had in life. They had all the right contacts. Everything they desire was either a phone call or a handshake away. Their homes look like they were pictures taken right out of an interior design magazine. Their furniture matches and complements each other piece. Their travels consist of lavish hotels and fine dining. When they travel, they book flights and take with them beautiful luggage filled with expensive clothing.

Even the sight of this group of people in airports drew me in. Just the mere display of them walking tall with confidence just radiating through their designer clothing as they walked with intent to their gates at the airport was enough for me to stare in awe. This appealed to me as I felt this was necessary in finding that strong character I was seeking. So I invested my time and energy toward becoming much like this ideal person I was watching.

The backpackers are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They have chosen a less conventional way of living. Rather than the big job and the expensive lifestyle of the previously mentioned soul, these other people moved from job to job. They found alternative ways to go about their lives. Rather than saving all the money they could to travel, they would work within temporary employment until they had just enough money to move to another destination. These are the type of people that many will not even notice on the street, or at least try not to. Backpackers seem to not care about accumulating large sums