Wanderlust... is it coincidence or manifestation?
My latest journey took me back home in a sense… I spent most of the time visiting with my parents and during this time memories of my childhood adventures resurfaced. Some things I hadn’t recalled.
My parents reminisced how much I loved to hear about their travels. How I loved the treasures they would bring back from their adventures together. Those trinkets fueled my imagination. They helped me create stories and dreams about far off places! I was never short on imagination.
When I was 6 years old, I built a 3 story rocket in my closet. When the door would shut, that closet became a gateway for my imagination, a gateway into discovery. From distant stars and planets to places my parents had told me about, nothing was off limits and nothing made me happier!
This was the first indication that travel and discovery would very much be a part of my future. This was Wanderlust. That Christmas I received a bike from Santa. A true mode of transportation. It was a game changer. My traveling options just exploded.
I recall packing Chef Boyardee and PopTarts in my backpack and pedaling out of the garage early Saturday mornings. Baseball cards were placed perfectly in the spokes of my bike. That sound resonates in my ears today….pau pau pau pau pau pau pau pau! To wander meant freedom. If my mother had known how far I would ride my bike, I would have been grounded for life. Those wheels took me to some interesting places I’ll never forget.
By the time I was 14 I was riding not only bikes but busses. I needed to go further, so by 16 I’d seen 32 states and 2 countries without my parents. I would take supervised tours that I found in travel magazines and sneak on with 18 year olds. There were times I was denied due to my age but I never gave up trying to see more.
Each time I traveled I was keen to learning new things. I remember others might be apprehensive or nervous. Not me…..I couldn’t wait to go. I thrived in those new moments. I was consumed with travel. This need to wander further and further was beginning to intrigue me.
The summer before my senior year in high school, I packed a big ruck sack and headed to Great Britain to work for the British Trust Conservation Volunteers. I traveled alone and volunteered in their national forests building foot bridges, trails and helping farmers build drainage off of the moors.
I even helped refurbish a 16th century fish hatchery on an estate just outside Swansea, South Wales. The BBC did a tv show on our work. I remember our group going down to the pub to watch it. This experience was probably the most enlightening moment of my life to this point. The main thing I learned from it was that there are many opinions in this world and many different ways to live your life. The world was different and I needed to see and feel it all.
During the 3 months backpacking, I began to think about my love to travel. Why did I love it so much? How come I feel so alive when I am faced with things unknown. Why did I thrive in these moments? Why do I want to leave home? What is the driving force behind all this? At this point I had not heard the word Wanderlust nor the idea of what manifestation meant either.
I did think that when I imagined about traveling it would help things become real.
It wasn’t until 4-5 years later when at the age of 23, I took a trip to Jamaica that I stumbled across the word Wanderlust. I was paddling down a river outside of Montego Bay and as I passed under the bridge there it was on the wall. I just remember thinking someone took the time to write this under there. I need to look it up when I get back to our rental house.
WANDERLUST
“A strong desire to travel. A person consumed by travel”
BINGO! It blew me away. I now had a name to describe this driving force.
Fast forward 23 years, I end up moving to a little town called Nosara, located in Costa Rica. I could have traveled and lived anywhere in the world but this little town called out to me and I began to set down roots.
During my first month in Nosara, as I was walking in Playa Guiones, I saw a sign that read Wanderlust......Wanderlust Realty. I had to walk in. That day I met Brandon Richardson, the founder of Wanderlust Realty. Today, Brandon and I are partners at Wanderlust Realty in Nosara. It was as if the pieces to a puzzle were found that I had been working on for years.
So I asked the question: Coincidence or manifestation?
I’ll let you make your own decision but I am 100% certain that it is not coincidence. I’m a firm believer in manifesting your own destiny. Those days yearning (Wanderlust) to travel in that little closet and throughout the years was manifested by a kid, a teenage boy, a young man and now a middle age man.
Pay attention to the signs that are presented throughout your life. Be open to receiving their messages.
Next on the horizon for me is meeting Elon Musk and hitching a ride on one of his rockets. There I said it out loud. It will happen…
Written by:
Brian Neal