Picking your next dream

Over the last year, I have realised a lot of things about myself, and I think many of them could be helpful to one of you. Before you start reading this, I would like to ask you to write down a few dreams you have held onto. Anything that you hope to one day achieve or see in person.

All of my dreams involve travelling around the world and seeing things.

For years my two main dreams have been:

• To see a whale shark
• To see the northern lights.

After graduating from university I decided this would finally be the year where I could afford to do these things, I booked a trip to Iceland and an evening northern lights tour. Now as most people will tell you about the northern lights, they are unpredictable. You may see them, you may see nothing, and the northern lights reveal themselves in all sorts of colours. So that night we went out and had no luck, standing out in freezing weather while it snowed, we couldn’t see anything. At the end of the tour, we were asked if we would like to pay to go again tomorrow. We did not pay again to go tomorrow.

So 2018 wouldn’t be the year of “the northern lights” and that’s okay, maybe seeing a whale shark will be a bit simpler.

At the time of my second trip to Japan, I had recently been made redundant from work, I was worried that would sour any experience, an irrational worry. On the flight over to Japan, it was late at night and we were flying over Russia. I looked out the window and I…