a follow up to my call for support

A few months ago I sent a request asking for donations. (here) This wasn't easy as I'm really bad at accepting things. But my plan was to buy a motorbike and travel across the country with friends and this meant I needed to not just buy buy a bike but also new travel insurance, as I never drove before and I figured I was destined to get hurt on a motorcycle. I was close to running near my estimated "come home now" level of cash then and I had a thought that some people had voiced to me about, ask the userbase for donations. The thought was that if people enjoyed my adventures, if it effected their days somewhat and gave them enjoyment then asking for a small commission for that enjoyment would not be too different than say buying a newspaper. Ok, very different, but not so much. As they say in SE Asia, same-same but different.

The other day I was thinking to myself how I felt bad about accepting money for me to gallivant around the world while people worked hard for that money. Especially since most of the people who donated were either in grad school or I knew were not making so much money. And my jewish guilt had me feeling wrong for it. But when I got to my next stop and saw that my friend, the amazing Michelle G, had made a very generous donation I took it as a sign that it's ok to accept these things from people. In fact after nearly a month with no donations I doubled all the previous donations in a few days as some other good friends donated.

Though, I still feel somewhat bad about accepting these things and feel like I owe more to these friends now I also am getting better at accepting things. And maybe that is the best point of it all. well, maybe, but also maybe just receiving cash for traveling is the best part.

Another reason I tried this so called experiment was to see if people who didn't know me were reading about my adventures and would they donate. People kept telling me I should write a book or do something with these stories and I was curious to see how my travels effected people I did not know. So if this last section pertains to you, please let me know what you think. And it doesn't have to be with a monetary donation, words also work.

One last thing I should mention is about that estimated "come home now" level of cash. I have gone over my planned amount by a little (or maybe not so little) and this means that potentially I am do to come back in the near future. I left myself a little padding and am using this right now but I can't imagine I'll be able to be away much longer. Though I have also gone way over my estimated time limit as well, as I write this I am just past the 13th month mark. That in itself is somewhat absurd to me, but I choose to just soak in it and continue to let the universe guide me.