He was fourteen years old when he decided he was done waiting.
Not waiting for permission. Not waiting to be old enough, or rich enough, or brave enough. Not waiting for someone else to make a plan. He packed what he could carry — which was not much — and he left.
He ended up in places he had never heard of before. He slept in tents. He sat with Bedouins in the desert and ate bread cooked over open fire…
The monk asked: “Do you know what you’re looking for?” The traveler thought about it. Then he said: “Something real.” The monk nodded slowly. “That’s the hardest thing to find,” he said, “because it was never lost. You just stopped looking in the right direction.”