Reflecting on the Journey So Far

The most astonishing thing about this journey so far is that I have already traveled such a great distance in such a short span of time. It was only in July that I met Mike, who first told me about Adopt a Village in Laos. Weeks later, I met Steve, the other driving force behind this grassroots organisation. To both of them, I am extremely grateful for having entered their orbit. My creativity has been stimulated. My sense of adventure has been rekindled. An incredible and inexorable sense of excitement has been ignited deep within me, which I am sharing with other people every chance I get to tell them about the work with which I am involved. Above all, it is the forging of connections with new people both near (and soon to be far) that is most enriching and rewarding for me.

At the beginning of October, I recorded one of their fundraising presentations, and then a week later I presented it to the world by uploading it to YouTube. In mid-October, this blog came into being, not only to expand awareness but to share the passion I feel for the work they are doing. With momentum unabated, November opened and saw the creation of a newsletter dedicated to Adopt a Village in Laos. The most recent milestone occurred this week when I started reading Greg Mortenson's book, Three Cups of Tea, which is the book that inspired (and continues to inspire) Steve in his work.

As Joseph Campbell so eloquently stated when one has found one's true passion in life, he said:

Follow your bliss.

If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track

that has been there all the while waiting for you,

and the life you ought to be living

is the one you are living.

When you can see that,

you begin to meet people

who are in the field of your bliss,

and they open the doors to you.

I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,

and doors will open

where you didn't know they were going to be.

If you follow your bliss,

doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for

anyone else.

I think this is the bliss which I was intended to follow.