How can I go from these views to a regular jobs?
My time in El Nido didn’t start off great — I got food poisoning and spent days recovering. But that downtime gave me space to think about work, gap year, and what I actually want from the next phase of life. This post is less about travel and more about trying to make sense of what comes next.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that I simply don’t want to go to work in September.
But I might be forced.
It all started in El Nido. Our trip to the Philippines has been transformative. I got a really bad case of food poisoning, and it took me over a week to recover. The first few days, I had no energy at all and I barely remember how they passed. But gradually, I started feeling better, and eventually, I even found a new sense of motivation to be productive.
I started thinking about what my next step is going to be. I had planned to take a gap year and then enroll in university in September and start working to support myself. But being in El Nido, on a backpacking route exploring the world, made me want to ditch university and just continue traveling.
But, despite what TikTok and Instagram might present to you, traveling costs money. You can go through your savings pretty quickly and if you’re not careful, you’ll end up in a dangerous place (where you might have to switch from morning coffee with avocado toast to a glass of water with toasted bread). And even if you are careful, you give yourself some extra days (or weeks) but eventually, you have to start considering getting a job to pay for all these adventures.
So here’s where my struggle starts. Deep down (very deep down) I do want to come back to Europe, finish university and see what life has to offer next. But I don’t want to get a job.
Maybe I just never had a great experience at work or maybe it was just the type of jobs that I was applying to, but I’ve never really liked it. I spent most of my time mind-training to see the good side of the work that I was doing, I was really trying not to complain or to even think too deeply about what I’m spending my days on, the mental effort that I was putting in was some serious magic. And the money was mostly pretty good. So that always got me a rush of motivation to start a new Monday.
But I never enjoyed being told when to wake up, how to do simple things, being bossed around by a manager on their “bad day,” it was exhausting. And I was exhausted by putting so much of my energy into keeping my calm.
How can I go from these views to a regular jobs?
Maybe I should aim higher – apply to jobs that would really use my skills that I’ve been building, in university and outside. But my problem is that I can’t sell myself (please tell me I’m not the only one). I have a guilty conscience when I imagine exaggerating on my CV or pretending to know how to do things. I feel like I have no real experience at a normal job and don’t know how to pinpoint what I’d learnt in my Orderpicker position, other than “How not to lose my mind with a crazy boss.” I should actually maybe look into the skill of building a CV. I have to write a proper CV for myself.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to go back to that life. My gap year is supposed to end in September and I should enroll in university and get a job to pay for my expenses. While recovering from my food poisoning, I started looking for a job online—something I could do remotely or maybe once I arrived home in Europe. I found a few listings that seemed okay and saved them to my “liked options.” But I didn’t really like them.
The jobs that sounded even somewhat interesting were out of my reach because I didn’t have the qualifications or experience - hopefully University will help with that. And the ones I could potentially do seemed really boring to me. El Nido made me think that I might not have to get a normal job. Walking by the beach heading to the most chaotic and vibrant city, I felt inspired and motivated to make income with something I love.
This might be a good intro for launching a brand new product, unfortunately, that is not happening. But it is the sort of direction I want to be heading towards.
I understand that sometimes we need to do things we don’t like (jobs that pay the bills) in order to do the things we love (travel, read, create). But I don’t feel like this next year is meant to be about survival for me. I want to try working on a few ideas I’ve come up with, to see if I can start making money doing something I actually care about.
I only have a few more days in the Philippines, but I have about four more months of my gap year to make things work. If it all goes badly, I can just go back to a regular job in September like nothing happened.
So that’s what El Nido was for me. Mostly, it was about recovering from food poisoning — but also visiting the beach, exploring the town and having a lot of fun adventures. At the same time, I spent hours reflecting on my projects, trying to put into words and plans the things that I enjoy and that bring me happiness — and maybe could bring in some income too.
I'm going to try and document this journey and hopefully by the time university starts, I can look back and see that I have come a long way.
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