Pressing Pause: Part Two

Eat Sleep Read Travel Blog Vlog Repeat

My backup plan was travelling in case the course does not work for me. I wanted a sabbatical in 2020 for a year and do exhaustive solo travel and tick off my bucket list. Never had I imagined that it would manifest in this way. So manifest cautiously!

Reading: I read a lot of books, gifted by friends, from my library, etc. I started reading the book, The Midnight Library, and finished the same in Sept. I was reading Ikigai throughout the Oct month. The reading habit went on till May. I even wrote Book Summary series of 10 posts on the books I read. Lets see on the response, then I would write another series. I was reading travel blogs and extensively studying content writing from the Shooting Star Academy.

Travel: since I do not have a job letter anymore, my travel list gets restricted to only India and E-visa, Visa Free, Visa on Arrival countries (wherever the job letter is not mandatory). The countries in my bucket list were exactly opposite. My age and single status would not allow me an entry to Schengen countries. Now I had money and time but the travel of my dreams is not happening. I had an idea of how the break will impact my travels, still I chose my hard. Earlier I thought as I would be occupied with the course, lets travel somewhere after 1st Aug and before the course start date. But there were no tours for the places I had in my bucket list. I was very sure that even if I had nothing to do, I will not travel to any place without purpose and also due to the strict budget. I booked the Thailand tour (Phuket, Krabi) in Sept and I was sick on tour. I realized I am not a beach person. I travelled by train after 1.5 months. It was so nostalgic. I wanted to go for Kashmir but somehow did not book it. I had planned for three back-to-back tours in Nov: Bhutan, Sikkim, Mauritius. You plan and things happen exactly as you wish, is a miracle. Well not in my case. I had to choose between Bhutan and Kashmir for the dates were clashing (both start on 2nd Nov), chose Bhutan for the Tiger’s Nest trek. Kashmir remains a dream now. The selfish reason for choosing Bhutan was at least that made me jog/run in the evenings for an hour daily in Oct month. Next, I had to choose between Andaman and Sikkim (both start on 15th Nov), chose Sikkim for I had enough of the Vitamin Sea last month. Now this tour got postponed and merged with the family tour of 21st Nov. So, then I had to cancel Mauritius. There was a chance to do Kashmir between Bhutan and Sikkim, but I didn’t do it. First ten days of Nov went in Bhutan tour, last ten days in Sikkim tour. In between ten days went in recovering from the trek pain and tiredness. Andaman plans were cancelled twice due credit to cousin weddings in Dec and Feb start. I did not go single occupancy on tours for those were way costly. I was planning for Hong Kong Macao or Kohima tour of Women's Day Special but had to book Vietnam Sapa Phu Quoc. Then I pressed a pause on travel as well. The tour cost went over my budget and I was getting into the loop of Travel - Blog - Travel. I realized I had spent a good amount of money on all my travels till date (though budgeted).  

Blogging: I started writing posts of Scandinavia, completed 13 posts in Sept month. I requested to enable the AdSense for my blog in the first week of Oct. My blog was reviewed, few pages (About me, Welcome) were added and it was enabled on Laxmi Pujan Day. I started studying on content writing and photography. Applied all of the learnings on my blog to increase the reach. I completed writing 11 posts of Scandinavia and 4 posts of Thailand, before Diwali. Wrote 6 posts of Bhutan in Nov. My blog earnings started in Nov ($0.09). But we start receiving the amount only after the threshold of $100. Well I did not know this, I was creating an alternately source of income. Before pressing a pause on your main income source, think through the chances and time taken for alternate sources to work in your favour. I started sharing blog post links on all my Travel WhatsApp groups, my Facebook Travel page, my facebook account (surprisingly very less views), WhatsApp status. The earning amount was not consistent, it kept going down. I completed with 2 posts of Bhutan and 12 posts of Sikkim before Christmas. I created a WhatsApp channel to post my blog links at the start of Dec but no one joined, so I stopped it by Christmas. I completed writing 10 posts of Vietnam in March. April onwards added images created through copilot on earlier posts. Created Summary Travel posts, edited and re-wrote earlier posts, updated the School Page. Around the World page was getting too lengthy so diverted it in three pages of India, Asia, Europe. I pressed pause on writing in May after revamping my blog. Now I have a bank of scheduled weekly posts till Aug of 2027.  

Vlogging: I started with Youtube vlogs (worst decision ever). My intention was to share faceless videos and shorts and collages gifs, etc from the travels so far. I studied video editing, adding music from Inshots. I messaged every known person (sms, whatsapp, messenger, etc) from school to office to like share subscribe. I already had 7 subscribers since 2019, reached to 82 by the end of Dec, 128 by Jan and then it stopped. From Feb till May, the count reached 137. My goal was to reach the bare minimum 1000 subscribers in a year and 4000 watch hours so that I can request to monetize my vlog, again the $100 applies here. I was so stupid to waste 3 months on this shit, I pressed pause on uploading videos by Feb end. Seems that it is not my cup of tea. Guess what, ads show up on my videos! But no benefit out of those. I created my Travel favourite playlist, Meditation, Devotional, Songs playlist.

No comments on the Read Travel Blog, whether it was a success or failure. Only time will tell. As of now the Travel was paused in March and Read & Blog paused in May (butterfly effect of my Work pause). It is only Eat Sleep Repeat.