Are You Lost?

Define yourself, and let others do the same

To be honest, I’ve never self identified as any of the terms that people have come up with me in my life. Sure, at one point people were more than willing to throw me in the hockey player category, which entailed a bunch of traits that I didn’t care for, then I ran into the hippie category which certainly ran contrary to the former. As I started travelling the names that people would use to describe me would run from backpacker, to gypsy, to world traveler, to adventurer to my personal favourite, LOST

Somewhere in Laos

Some ‘lost temples’ in Laos

Lost… Has anyone ever called you lost? Some people that I knew quite well were completely willing to decide for me that I had become lost. Lost in what?

Lost in time? As you travel you may not know the given hour, or the given day; sometimes the month might slip out of reach and many a seasoned traveller has been known to even lose track of the year. But you will always know when the sun comes up, and when it goes down, what season you are in, and how long you spent on the bus. And after all, those should be the real measures of time, not the man-made calendars that has now enslaved so many. 

Sunset, Kadidiri Island, Indonesia

Sunset, Kadidiri Island, Indonesia

Lost in space? Well… Do you have to stay put in order to know exactly what space you hold? I would dare to say not. Most likely you will not be travelling into outer space, so you can rest assured that your place on the blue planet is a stronghold.

Lost in the world? Okay, on a given day you might not know exactly where you are. But you’ll always have a rough estimate. And who’s more lost in the world, the one who ventures out, and understands the place from which he came, or the one who stays in that place, and isn’t able to put it into any sort of geographical context, other than looking at a globe?


Finding our way, Laos

Finding our way, Laos

Lost and Seeking? This was the most common. “Hope you find what you’re looking for” they would say. Well yes, I hope you find what you’re looking for as well, but I don’t think you have to be lost to be searching.

Lost in yourself. This is a classic. You’re trying to find out who you are. Well, good. You should always be on a quest to discover yourself as a person, as a being, and not just as a small part of one society. Furthermore, if people think that other 20 something year olds know themselves because they’re settled, I would dare to say that such people haven’t ventured far enough out of the box they were given to gain perspective upon who they really are.

'Lost' off the coast of Cambodia

‘Lost’ off the coast of Cambodia


Travel will broaden your horizons on a grand scale. You won’t think in terms of who’s lost, and who isn’t. And, if by chance, you do think of yourself as lost, it will be a self realization that you were lost before you set out

And remember, “not all who wander are lost; and not all who are lost, wander”.

How about you, have you felt lost on the road? Or maybe even at home? 

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