Where to begin?

     I often wonder this, because I often think about committing words to a page and describing how and what I do, not from any deluded expectation that my life is grander or any more interesting then any one else's... But the simple act of writing down your experiences and aspirations can fuel the fire to achieve more of your goals.

    When I read back though things i've wrote in the past (apart from having the hindsight to see how ignorant I may have been as an adolescent) I learn from it. I can see how much i've changed. I can take a rather unique perspective of my own life that I think only someone who writes can get. The fact is, we, as a species tend to forget. A lot. We take generalisations of situations for future processing but on the whole the details of our day to day life are irrelevant and therefore forgotten.

    It stands to reason therefore that the choices i've made, certainly the big decisions in my life, have stuck with me. I can remember the first cigarette I smoked. The first day I was alone in a new country. How i felt sitting on a empty bench in the middle of the night back in 2009. And every single choice i've made has led me down the long, and sometimes unexpected, road that I am on today. As I mentioned before as I write this entry I am in a hotel room in Vietnam. But this is very very far from home indeed, and if you asked my 5 years ago where i would be... Here is far down on the list of possibilities. so, where do I begin?






  I think the English thing to do, when keeping to etiquette would be to formally introduce myself.




 
    For those who are unfamiliar, my name is Mark Lewis. I am 24 years old (for the next three days) and i look like this....

    Roughly 6 months ago my girlfriend and I came to an important decision, one that we couldn't take lightly and certainly one that would be remembered. To leave England, to leave our jobs, our homes, our friends and our lives.

    So thats how i'm going to start. With the decision. A good place if you ask me.

    In this blog i will take you through my journey. From the decision to get up and stop letting days be forgotten, through the trails of planning and saving, the tricks and tips on the shortcuts i made, the plane journeys, the bus rides, the sleepless nights and the unforgettable experiences. 

    I hope at this point that people who feel like-minded might take notice, if your reading now and feel like you too want to change something in your life, that you want to leave the country you live in, the town you grew up in or maybe just you have the aspiration to live independently. To everyone who has thought 'what else could i be doing right now, where else could I be if I had taken that chance or acted on that urge' then my blog is for you. I hope you enjoy, because if nothing else, I know that one day I will read this and feel how I have changed, and that is more then enough reason for me to carry on.