June 20, 2024

14 days in Thailand

If you want to read the entire story of my adventures this summer - clink this link to read edition #2.

I have been traveling Thailand with a backpack for 2 weeks.

I’ve had no plan, no itinerary, and no daily schedule. I’ve worked maybe 4 hours, if you count checking messages and writing this blog as working.

So far, the trip has been nothing short of magical. I’ve meditated for 3 days in the middle of the jungle with Buddhist Monks. I rode motorcycles through the mountains with two British girls. I’ve broken a heart out of ignorance and callousness. Then I got my heart broken out of idealism and attachment. I’ve had a lot of wild conversations with people all over the world about life, politics, history, philosophy, and spirituality over a joint or a beer. I’ve spent hours practicing sitting in beingness; watching kids play at the park, people watching on the street, or sitting still and enjoying a beautiful view. And most importantly, all the things that happened and lessons I’ve learned have come from not having a plan, but continuing to surrender to life.

Here is the start of my surrender experiment:

Why Am I Here?

From an outsider's point of view, I look crazy.

I’m in the early stages of running a successful online business. I could be focusing all my time and energy into growing and scaling it. But instead, I’m backpacking Thailand with a few pairs of clothes and intentionally not working.

Here are a handful of reasons why:

• I want to learn how to BE and not do

• I want to go on an adventure

• I want to learn how to live with an open heart

• I want to be okay with being a normal 22 year old kid figuring life out

• I want to deepen my spirituality, and bring eastern thought into my western life

• I want to learn more about the world and different cultures

• I want to talk with others my age and understand how they’re thinking about life

• I want to see what it would be like to actually surrender to life and trust the universe

I didn’t consciously think of these bullet points before I left. I’ve only identified them as the reasons I’m here after coming here.

When I booked my ticket from Chicago to Chiang Mai, the only bullet point I was consciuous of was the last one:

Surrendering to life and trusting the universe.

When you’re intentionally surrendering to life, you can’t predict the lessons you’ll learn. But your heart will lead you to the lessons you’re supposed to learn when you get out of your head and trust life.

Through this surrender experiment, I’ve learned more about myself in these past 2 weeks than I have the past 2 months in the US. I’ve had a number of serendipitous, too-good-to-be-true moments I couldn’t have planned. The more I surrender, the more magical the adventure becomes.

Here’s a few highlights so far:

Travel Day - The Uncontrolled Mind

During my 13-hour plane ride from Minneapolis to Seoul, South Korea, I observed my neurotic mind for about 7 hours. I spent the first 3 hours on my computer. Thinking about the future. Strategizing my next business moves. Planning the last three months of my year once I returned from my trip. After a few hours of this, I took a step and saw what I was doing. Here I was about to embark on what I intended to be a trip of surrender, but yet I was planning and needing to control how life would look after my trip. Insanity!

I stopped typing and decided to meditate. And for the next 10 hours (with some scattered sleep in between), I watched my mind jump from planning the next business project to thinking about where I’d live after I got home to worrying about which texts I needed to answer when I landed.

I realized all of these thoughts and plans were run by fear. Fear of not making any money. Fear of not having a home. Fear of not being successful. Fear of letting go of control. I realized this was exactly why I was on this trip. To learn to get out of the thinking, planning mind and into the present moment. I decided that no matter how uncomfortable it may be, I would repeatedly try and bring my mind back to surrendering to the here and now whenever it wandered to planning and worrying about the future. The first episode in surrender happened the next day.

Day 1: The First Taste of Surrender

After a 32+ hour travel journey, I finally checked into my hostel in Chiang Mai and went straight to sleep. I woke up early the next morning, strangely full of energy, and decided to head to the lobby to hang out. When I got there, two girls from my room were there, and so we got to chatting. They said they were getting picked up by a tour bus in about 10 minutes to go on an excursion to see elephants and ride bamboo rafts through the jungle. I asked if I could tag along, the driver said yes, and the surrender experiment had begun.

Days 2-5: Sinking Into The Flow Of Travel

The next few days were fully adjusting to the new way of living I was transitioning into during these travels. I continued to wake up each day with no plan, and instead tried to stay in a state of radical openness for whatever life had in store for me.

And these first few days were magical. On the second day, I was wandering around Chiang Mai, reading a book, and visiting Buddhist temples. I ran into a monk outside of one of the temples and chatted with him for a few minutes. Then I went inside to meditate. I felt a bit self-conscious sitting there in a temple in the lotus position as some white dude from America, but I saw it as an opportunity to continue to get over worrying what other people think of me.

I was meditating in one temple when a western girl around my age walked in. We ended up chatting and walking around the city together. We visited temples. Had smoothies and Thai food. Got Thai messages. Talked about life, psychology, meaning, philosophy, and spirituality. And then just like that, she was gone, on her way to Laos.

I was starting to experience the strange transient nature of relationships while solo traveling. You drop in extremely deep with someone and you feel like you’ve known them for years. And within a few hours of days, you each go your separate ways, likely never to see one another again.

This happened over and over again over the next few days. I met a group of travelers in the lobby of my hostel later that day and joined them for dinner and a joint afterwards. That was fun. I felt like I was back in college.

The fourth day was slower. I learned to cook pad thai in the lobby of my hostel. I met some more travelers from Australia, the Netherlands, and Honduras, and we went for beers at a local bar. We met an older woman from Australia who had studied Kriya Yoga in India. She was very tapped in. We all talked about what God went to us and our relationship with spirituality. Then in the complete opposite direction, we ended up going to a lady boy show that night. I didn’t enjoy it and found it quite strange, but I was by far the minority in that perspective, and so maybe there is deeper programming I need to dissolve in terms of sexuality and self-expression.

On the fifth day, I hiked the “Monk’s Trail” alone and meditated in some cool Buddhist temples at the top of the mountain. At night, I wandered around a street market by myself and experienced the profound realization that even though I was alone across the world, I could never actually be alone because I was one with the entire universe. I sat in the middle of a few hundred Thai people eating in the market, and was joined by a girl from Taiwan. As we were chatting, a guy from the table next to us overheard our conversation about psychedelics and Taoism and started chatting to us. It turns out he had sat with and served ayahuasca in the jungle of Costa Rica and was going back to school to study psychedelic integration at college in New York this year, which apparently has only come into existence as of this year. We joined tables, and I ended up going to have another conversation over another joint with these four people from Germany, New York, Italy, and France until around midnight at a weed cafe. The next morning I joined them for yoga, and just like that, they were all gone and going their separate ways.

The short bursts of deep interactions are like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It’s sad, but also beautiful. It’s a lesson in non-attachment and enjoying the present moment for what it is, without needing to think about what a connection might mean in some hypothetical future. Each connection you make while solo traveling, no matter if it’s deep or shallow, long or short, teaches you some lesson about yourself and about life. Human beings are the ultimate mirrors for revealing where you aren’t free. I’m learning to thank people internally when they trigger something in me for shining a light on where I have more internal work to do, or something to let go of.

Days 6-10: Mediation Retreat in Pa Pae

After my time in Chiang Mai, I decided to attend a 3 day meditation retreat in the jungle between Chiang Mai and Pai in a little monastic village called Pa Pae.

Here was the daily schedule we followed during the retreat:

• 5:30 a.m. - Medtiate with monks in temple

• 6:30 a.m. - Walk with monks and collect food from village

• 7:30 a.m. - Breakfast

• 10:00 a.m. - Guided meditation with monks in temple

• 11:30 a.m. - Lunch (last meal of the day)

• 6:30 p.m. - Meditate with monks in temple

The first day I decided to go silent with my roommate, a guy around my age from the Netherlands.

Basically, you put a badge on around your neck that said “silent” and people knew not to speak to you.

During my silent day, I found the most valuable exercise to actually spend time around people silent instead of spending the day in solitude. I’d eat breakfast and lunch with the group and then hang out with people who were chatting between activities, but just be there and not speak.

This was super powerful for me. I realized in social interactions I tend to speak a lot and have a tendency to dominate a conversation, or need to put my two cents into every discussion. Being around people and not speaking allowed me to practice patience and listening, and gave me the chance to see what normal social interactions were like when I was not a part of them. I learned the wisdom of biting my tongue and not speaking, and have noticed I’m listening better in conversations after having done this exercise.

Also, taking time in solitude and watching my mind continue to plan, think, and strategize about business and the future allowed me to come to some breakthroughs:

• It’s okay to not know.

• Patience is one of the highest virtues.

• Trust in the natural unfolding of things.

• The more I surrender during this trip, the more magical it becomes. Why would “normal life” be any different?

I’m still a work in progress, but my relationship with the future is shifting from being run by fear and anxiety to coming from serenity and surrender.

The next day, I really took it slow. I didn’t have coffee. I continued to fast. My default state when activities weren’t going on was learning how to be instead of distracting myself with more reading, journaling, or conversation. However, I did I feel liberated to speak, and had some really great conversations with the other people from the retreat, who were eerily similar to myself.

Almost every person there was a 20-30 year old from the west who had a bit of experience with meditation, had some sort of spiritual perspective, and was there searching for some deeper answers about themselves and about life. In fact, this seems to be the archetype of person who is solo traveling southeast asia.

They want freedom. They want adventure. They want to understand the depths of life. Even though it’s not my intention, speaking with all these people is like doing boots on the ground market research for my future programs and book. It’s clarifying my purpose of helping them create lives of internet freedom to then pursue internal freedom.

On the 3rd and 4th days, my focus shifted from interest in deep introspection and meditation to interest in a girl. I decided I’m going to keep those details (and all romantic details) private in my heart, for now. But as the retreat closed off, three friends and I headed on the next leg of the adventure, to a town in the north of Thailand called Pai.

Days 10-14: Pai

The car ride from Pa Pae to Pai was maybe the worst car ride of my life. The road is essentially a winding highway through the mountains for 90 straight minutes. For 90 straight minutes, I thought I was going to puke. The pizza, chocolate, and cappuccino I had before probably also didn’t help. Somehow, we arrived with none of us throwing up.

If you’re ever going to make this same journey yourself, I’d recommend not eating before and taking some sort of motion sickness tablet. In other words, be wiser than me.

These next few days in Pai were a roller coaster. I spent the first few days hanging with this girl. My obsessive nature with needing to control the future was slippery, as it shifted from thinking about business to now thinking about this girl, and my attachment to this idealistic viewpoint ended up in me hurting myself.

But I’m grateful it happened. Some things from childhood and high school resurfaced I hadn’t completely let go of. I got into the body and let myself feel real, raw emotions. I learned a valuable lesson in being present and dropping expectations. But I also opened my heart and experienced having a crush for the first time in a while, which was fun. Life is more exciting when you have a crush, lol.

Other magical things happened in these few days in Pai.

I wandered into an art studio and met the wisest man I’d ever met in my life working there. He was homeless in France at 13, lived in a Tibetan monastery for 12 years and studied under Chögyam Trungpa, and then studied under masters in India for 22 years. He dropped more wisdom in our 2-hour conversation than I knew was possible.

The next night was even weirder. I was in this tiny hippie tea house with a few friends, where everyone sits on the floor, plays music, chats, and just hangs out. I felt a bit out of place, so it was a great exercise for me learning how to chill the f*ck out.

I wandered to the bathroom, and saw a kid sitting there with kakis and a nike shirt. He was journaling by himself. I could tell he was American, so I started chatting to him.

As we got to talking, I found out he was working in finance in New York but was moving to Boston in a few weeks, so he decided to travel SE Asia by himself in between. I told him I’d worked in finance for a bit too, but had since then carved a different path. I told him where I’d worked previously in Chicago, and he knew my supervisor for my internship very well. That same supervisor had texted me an hour before I met this kid. Then, I found out this kids dad founded the company I worked at.

I could not make this up. Again, life was winking at me.

Aside from spending time wandering around the town, meeting more random people, and hanging out with no real plans, I also rode motorbikes through the mountains with a few British friends which was extremely fun. Nothing has felt as freeing as riding these bikes around the mountains with no plans and an open road ahead.

As I’m writing this, it’s been 14 days since I arrived in Thailand. I think I’ll stay in Pai a bit longer. I don’t know where I’ll go next, or when, but I’m almost at complete peace with that. I feel I’ve been slowly screeching to a halt in terms of moving, planning, and doing in my life, and this week in Pai at a new hostel is going to be a chance to completely stop.

Now that I’ve recapped the story of what’s happened in these first two weeks, I want to reflect on some things I’ve learned about people and the world, things I’ve learned about myself, and some great quotes or ideas I’ve heard from other travelers that have made me stop and think.

Things I’ve learned about people & the world

Poorer Does Not Less Friendly, Warm, or Safe

My immediate family is all from the Midwest in the United States. Oftentimes, the first thing they ask me is if I feel safe while traveling. I reply that I have not felt unsafe once. The ironic thing is 30 minutes away from where I live in the suburbs of Chicago, dozens of people are murdered every day with guns in the midst of gang violence and crime.

People from America think that poorer immediately equals less safe. I used to assume this was true as well. But I’ve found this to be completely untrue. The Thai people have been incredibly warm and friendly, whether it be while I’m walking through a crowded market, at a cafe, or just on the street. I feel much safer here than I have walking the streets of Chicago, Austin, or San Fransisco.

America is a culture of individuals living in the future.

I see this pattern because I’m guilty of it myself. In America, we are obsessed with striving. Achieving. Getting somewhere. This frantic way of living leads to a culture that makes external progress in the form of material success and status, but makes little internal progress in terms of peace, stillness, and spiritual development.

Just look around at the plethora of middle aged Americans who have achieved external success on the outside with a vacation home, a Mercedes, and a C-suite position in their company, but couldn’t sit still in a room with no stimulation for 30 minutes without losing their minds. We are a culture trapped behind symbols of success without knowing what true internal success is.

I am realizing this especially after spending time here in Pai. There are hippies everywhere. I still feel programming in myself that these people should be striving for something and making something out of their life. But maybe they’ve just woken up. Maybe they’ve realized there’s nowhere to go or get to. Maybe they’ve realized that the freedom and peace that millions of us Americans are placing in the future is available to them right now in the present moment. Maybe they’re actually the wise ones because they’re allowing themselves to experience it.

With this, I think there’s a balance. A balance between striving for the future and fully embracing the now. A balance between worldly success and spiritual success. A balance between enjoying your life and impacting the world. This would be the Middle Way.

A bit of generosity while traveling can go a longggg way

Traveling over here is incredibly cheap. A coffee is $1. Pad Thai from the market is $1.50. A 90-minute massage is $7. Between my hostels, food, and other little things each day, I’m probably spending around $20-$40 a day total. That would be somewhere between $600 and $1200 a month.

If you tip $1 for your $1 coffee here, it’s not going to hurt your bank account, but it will absolutely make the worker’s day. If you tip the equivalent of $5, the amount of gratitude you will feel pouring out of the worker’s heart will make you emotional. I have gained a newfound appreciation for what I have at home and how I am able to make money online after experiencing this a handful of times.

Young people from the west are dying for a different life

More and more young people from first world, western countries are waking up to the fact that they were sold a lie by society. Almost everyone here traveling I’ve met has followed the same path:

• Get good grades.

• Go to college.

• Get an internship.

• Get a job.

• Get married.

• Get a mortgage.

• Have kids.

• Wait until retirement at 65 to experience freedom.

And they’ve realized it’s a scam. We’ve been programmed to think life is something we must wait to fully experience instead of realizing we can only experience it now. So many kids here from the ages of 19-30 are between jobs, on sabitcalls, taking time off of school, and trying to figure life out.

Every western man who has been conditioned to believe a high-paying corporate job or a successful business equals a successful life secretly has a repressed hippie in him who wants to grow his hair out, travel the world, and be completely free. I see this theme over and over again while traveling, in my friends from home, and in myself.

Young people from the west want to make money online, but they think they need a remote 9-5 to do so. Zooming out and talking with dozens of young people like myself has allowed me to see the need for this work from a new perspective.

Seeing this pattern is clarifying my purpose in helping other young people create lives of internet freedom so they can unlock the highest versions of themselves and make a greater impact on the world.

Everyone is searching for something

To go out solo traveling Southeast Asia, if you’re not just looking to party and escape reality, you’re searching for some answers.

When you really talk to people and find out why they’re here, you see you’re not alone in your search for truth, understanding, and answers. You see how everyone is on their own unique path of self-discovery and figuring life out, and the universe brings you together for a short period of time to help one another better navigate your unique paths. It’s beautiful.

Some people are further along on their spiritual journeys. Others haven’t started. But you can see everyone is on a journey of awakening whether they’re conscious of it or not. It just may or may not be in this lifetime.

Quotes or Ideas I’ve heard from people

“In the west, we think accumulating more things will satisfy our desires” ~ Johnny, 24, New York

“You can gain the universe, but you have to lose yourself” ~ Febe, 22, Netherlands

“Every sexual interaction is an exchange of energy” ~ Sean, 28, New York

“I came to wander around millions of people in Southeast Asia to realize how miniscule my problems are” ~ Sean, 28, New York

“Having no plan is a good plan” ~ Luna, idk, idk

“My friend is such a good entrepreneur because he’s distanced his ego from his actions” - Aksel, 27, Sweden

Things I’ve learned about myself

Everyone is a mirror

I’ve gotten nervous talking to cute girls, wiser elders, or successful entrepreneurs. I’ve also felt pride arise in me when I explain to people what I do or that I have people following me on social media. This reaction has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with me. It means I’m still pedestalizing these types of people, likely related to deep things from childhood, or I’m pedestalizing myself because of the ego.

It is incredible how nearly every social interaction will trigger something inside you that reveals where you’re not free, if you’re mindful and aware of it. I’m learning to be grateful for these triggers and invite them in for further investigation instead of pushing them away or wishing they didn’t exist.

Everything is happening on it’s own

I could not having consciously predicted or planned anything that has happened on this trip so far. Whether it’s been meeting monks on the street, making friends in hostels, or meeting gurus in art shops, these magical interactions have been beyond my conscious planning and in the hands of something greater than myself.

Everything seems to be unfolding naturally, as if by Divine will or predetermination. The right person appears on the street at the right time. I magically stumble into a coffee shop and overhear the exact conversation I was supposed to hear. I think I am meeting a person for one reason, only to find out life had a grander plan all along.

I am learning that the more I surrender and the less I control during this adventure, the more profound and magical the journey becomes. Life has a grander plan for me than my ego can dream up. Now the game becomes continuing to stay in this state of surrender not only for the duration of this trip, but also for the duration of my life.

No man who knows his true nature can ever be alone

When I was walking alone throughout the Saturday night market in Chiang Mai with thousands of people, I felt a profound sensation of being one with the entire universe come over me. I was walking amidst thousands as a separate being, yet I was also everyone walking around me. I was the girl singing on the corner. I was the group of 16-year old kid’s dancing and playing music in the street. I was the grandma selling food at her stand. It was deeply moving and beautiful and I was overwhelmed with a feeling of immense joy and bliss.

I have felt this a handful of times during this trip, but none as strong as that night in the market. I am learning the more connected I am to the entire universe, and the less I am in the thinking mind, the more I experience this intense connectedness with everyone and everything. It is only when I become too self-obsessed or I get trapped in thinking that I notice feelings of loneliness or isolation creep in.

Wisdom means sometimes staying silent or on the surface

I’ve noticed because I’m so curious, I have a tendency to accidentally dominate a conversation by asking too many questions, or asking too deep of questions too quickly. It’s probably because I’m curious and am used to doing so on podcasts. But because the people I’m meeting are typically independent thinkers (from solo traveling, questioning life, etc) a few have been willing to talk with me about it, and have opened my eyes to the truth in their observations.

I do have a tendency to go very deep very fast. I can dominate a conversation if I’m super curious. I’ve learned these things require more patience than I thought.

The silent day at the meditation retreat was really good for me to be able to sit around people in conversations without speaking and observe how other conversations typically go when I am not around. I’d sit around with the group at meals and hang around people throughout the day, but didn’t speak more than a few words. It was a really good lesson in patience and not needing to be the center of a conversation.

Patience, Beingness, and Non-doing are major areas of growth for me

Solo travel is a masterclass in getting to know yourself. I feel like I’ve grown more in these 2 weeks as a human here than I did in the past few months. Maybe not from previous metrics of success (launches,projects, followers) but my goal post for what success means is moving. I’m realizing for me, internal progress supersedes external progress.

I still have not completely surrendered to beingness. Text messages are looming in my mind. What project I’m going to build next and where I’m going to live after my trip keep popping into my mind the second I hit the meditation cushion. Compared to where I was at with this since getting here, I’ve made a lot of progress. But there’s a lot of space to grow.

Our external realities are merely projections of our minds. You can see this clearly when someone has a messy room. It is actually the scattered mind that preceded the messy room. I agree with Jordan Peterson’s sentiment of “clean your room.” But I feel it’s also important to figure out why the room got messy in the first place, i.e., the chaotic mind.

My theory is that by learning how to be patient, still, and get out of my worried, thinking mind and into the heart and the present moment, the external results will match the internal clarity. But the trap is the inner work cannot be done with the subtle intention of external results. We have to do it for the intrinsic desire for internal peace. Everything else is just the cherry on top.

There may be a season where it is time for me to enter back into a focused work season. But that season is not right now. What’s more important is learning how to live. I trust in the natural unfolding of things related to projects, business, the book, etc.

This quote from the Tao te Ching has been top of mind for me lately in terms of patience and playing the long game in life:

“Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe. Therefore the Master takes action by letting things take their course. He remains as calm at the end as at the beginning. He has nothing, thus has nothing to lose. What he desires is non-desire; what he learns is to unlearn.” ~ Lao Tzu - The Tao te Ching

What’s Next: Slowing To A Halt

One phrase has been repeating in my head over the past few days:

Existential tiredness.

I feel this word describes my life.

I’m so optimistic for the future. But I’m tired. I’ve always been doing something.

Football. Baseball. Basketball. Track. Studying economics. Studying psychology. Internships. Waiting tables. Doordashing. Writing online. Ghostwriting. Podcasting. Building projects. Launching cohorts. Fulfilling cohorts. Client work. Etc.

Looking back on my life, I have never actually stopped.

I’m addicted to doing, like most of the Western world unconsciously is.

It scares me a bit. Stopping. Completely taking the foot off the gas. But I’ve never actually done it. My gut tells me it will be good for me in a way I can’t know yet until I experience it.

I don’t know when the next letter will be. It may be next week. It may be next month. I’ll probably still be sharing ideas on X and IG, but maybe not haha.

It’s hard to make predictions when I’m trying to live in a state of surrender.

Anyways, thanks for reading.

Until next time,

Jack

If you want to read the entire story of my adventures this summer - clink this link to read edition #2.