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The Ugly Truth About Our Life

The Ugly Truth About Our Life

Yeah, we know how it may look like. A young, happy, and wealthy family is traveling around the world. All they do is having fun. That’s how it may seem when you look on our blog or social media. But that’s only a small part of our life. There is also a different side that is not that glamorous…

Here’s one of the messages we received:

Wait a second I just want to know how it is you get a man by your side all the time, the ability to afford to travel everyday AND afford to eat out for meals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! While I stay single, can’t take a vacation in my own country and never get to eat out. Something is so wrong about all this. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT I AM NOT. 

Let me put this straight… what you see on our blog and social media is only a part of the story. The other part and the ugly truth about our life is that we are working extremely hard every day, like 10-16 hours a day. EVERYDAY, including weekends. Why we don’t show this? Mainly because it’s boring and it won’t add value to your life. You can’t possibly get inspired by the photo of us sitting in front of our laptops. And our main mission is to show you that it’s possible to live a happy life and do what you love.

Snorkeling in Philippines

We work so hard because we like it. But the main difference between us and 99% of the world is that it is our choice. We can spontaneously decide to pack our suitcases and move to the other part of the world. Or wake up in the morning and decide not to work but go to the beach instead. We have this amazing thing called freedom. We don’t have a boss, a loan or anything that would keep us attached to one place.

And we believe everybody deserves to have this choice. How to do it? Well, I’ve written about it in other posts, like for example how to make your dreams come true or how to become a digital nomad. I am also replying to every message that we receive, so if you have any questions, just drop us a line.

Luck

When we hear or read that we are lucky to have a life like this, we are giggling. All we have was built by the hard work and getting up every time we got hit. We had countless failures and disappointments.

But we never had second thoughts. We knew exactly what we want from our life and we decided to fight for our dreams. That’s it.

People often tell us that we are lucky to be happily married. We are not lucky! We are just working hard to make it work. We are talking with each other and making our relationship better every day. We go on dates at least once a week (now when we have a baby, we go on dates anytime we cna) and we always tell the truth to each other, even though it hurts.

When we started dating, we make an agreement that we will do everything to be happy. That we will never go to sleep if we are not reconciled. That we will tolerate and love each other unconditionally. It’s hard. It’s freaking hard sometimes but we always remember about our main goal: to be happy, to spend the whole life and die together. We don’t have ‘quiet days’ and never pretend to be someone we are not.

Relax in Melaka

Being gifted

It’s unbelievable but many people think that we actually get everything we have for free. That we must have a wealthy family or some kind of sponsor to be able to travel the world. We must be hiding something because it’s impossible to live a life like this. We even heard once that we are smuggling drugs because earning money online can’t be real!

Haha, we are still not sure if it’s funny or just sad. EVERYTHING we have, was built from the scratch. We had support of the people we love but all we got from them were a nice words. That’s it. NOTHING more than words.

We had a dream and a determination to make it come true.

And trust us- if we could do it, you can do it too!

Karolina and Patryk in Philippines

No failures

Our life is far from being perfect. We had so many failures that we can’t even count them. We lost many friends, who couldn’t understand our way of living. 3 years ago we had to move from our beloved apartment because we have no money to pay the rent ($500 monthly!). Our company failed twice. Our blog was a disaster at the beginning, we had no writing or photographic skills. One of us was diagnosed terminally ill. We cried and got drunk many times but we never gave up.

We know that life is a beautiful gift and everything that is happening has a bigger purpose.

If we haven’t lost our apartment, we would probably never start a life of digital nomads.

If our company hasn’t failed, we wouldn’t learn how to run a business properly. Your best teacher is your last mistake. This is one of the best quotes we’ve ever heard. Failures are an integral part of life and you won’t run away from them. It’s not true that your situation is bad. It’s about how you interpret it. If you fall down, you get up stronger, draw conclusions and move on. That’s what successful people do.

You can also give up, believe that life is difficult, stop trying and start blaming other people for your own mistakes. It’s the easiest way. But it’s the way of losers. You won’t get anything for free, you need to prove the world that you are worth it.

So if you look at other people’s lives, don’t just see what they are having right now. Think of what they must have done to achieve it. What actions they must have taken to be successful.

This is the ugly truth about our life and the lives of other successful people. We all are working very hard to fulfill our dreams. We never give up, no matter how much we are hurt. We are hard-working and patient because we believe in our goal and know that it will take some time and we’ll get what we want.

What is the ugly truth about your life? What do you think about our post? Remember, sharing is caring! Share your thoughts in comments :)

14 Responses

  1. Thank you for sharing!! I run a travel website as well and people don’t understand how much behind-the-scenes work goes into it.

    Best,
    Sarah

  2. Love this kind of posts!
    I hope more people would finally understand that most things in live didn’t happen out of luck!
    Only because people don’t see the work behind what you achieved doesn’t mean it came out of nothing. I also hear from some people in my social circle that I’m so “lucky” for traveling, compared to them I don’t have a full-time job but I always try to make it WORK.
    An ugly truth about my life: my blog was born out of desperation. It saved my sanity to have something that keeps me going and a place where I can leave out my creativity.

      1. Thank you , you inspired me , I was working very hard for some time , go to work, take courses , Cook , clean , wash etc. I was overwhelmed. But I think I will continue to believe in my goals and work hard towards them

  3. Love your post! Working 10-16 hours a day is not uncommon for a travel blogger/writer, and I am glad you guys overcome so many difficulties and have achieved so much to this day.

    I have been travel blogging for four years, had some paid gigs and last month started my own blog. I know how much effort we have to make to achieve our dreams. So when some of my friends looks at my travel photos and tell me I am rich, I should not travel that much that my dream career is a sponsored free vacation not a real job, I just tell them to f** off (excuse my language here).

    1. Haha no need to excuse! You are totally right, there is no better answer for people who are underrating our job. It’s really difficult to live a life of full-time traveler and blogger. We just need to keep on doing what we love and show the world that our work is worth A LOT :).

  4. “Blogging is easy. All you need to do is sit down type some words and get some pictures. See, easy!”
    But then you start doing it for a while and take it more serious and you realise exactly how time consuming blogging is. If I struggle to find inspiration and I’m just starting, I can imagine how hard it must be for you guys that do it for real!

    I love the “you are lucky” and “you are gifted” comments because I heard it from my own family as well. People never see the struggle that you went through before you get where you are now. It’s easier to focus on the good and ignore the bad because most people would probably quit way before the sh*t starts to smell!

    I have a lot respect for you guys. The life you take is a dream, but it doesn’t come easy. I’m also very happy that you two managed to deal with all the issues and get where you are now. Keep on being amazing!

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We are Karolina, Patryk, and Mia, the lazy traveling family. After spending 5 years as digital nomads, and living in many countries in the world, we decided to make Poland our base.

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