Now, I’ll finally get to the real point of this story. After almost two years in Western Samoa, my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer had only a few months remaining. I realized that it was time for me to start making preparations for bicycling around the world. The timing seemed auspicious to me. After fulfilling this vision, I could move forward with life, whether with my planned MD/PhD and biomedical research into the body/mind connection, or with whatever life path I chose to follow.
Despite the auspicious timing, as I considered the mechanics of organizing and preparing and getting into practical details, the impracticality of my vision came more and more to hang over my mind like a dark cloud of fear. I recognized that this is the reason why I had continued to postpone this step for so many years already. I never wanted to be pushed up against my fear point. My big fear was related to finances.
I thought that I saw realistically that I would not have anywhere close to sufficient money to pay for my expenses while bicycling around the world. That seemed clear and obvious to me. It seemed like an indisputable impediment for which I saw no way to overcome. The only solution seemed to be to get more money. The obvious plan would be to return to USA and work as a doctor or medical researcher until I had enough money to fulfill my world cycling dream.
As I contemplated the feasibility of that scenario, I considered how much of an investment from my life would be required for this approach. I would want to get an MD/PhD. Then I would need to do internship and residency, and then repay the loans incurred in this process. I figured that a minimum commitment of ten years would be required to break even and maybe even get a start on saving enough money to bicycle around the world.