Wild Ideas Worth Living · Tuesday, July 28, 2026
During his journey, Samer Abu Hamad experienced moments of overwhelm, particularly when contemplating the vast distance ahead. He learned to break down the massive goal into smaller, manageable checkpoints, like reaching specific states or cities, to maintain momentum and avoid feeling daunted.
“Actually, there was exactly one of those pretty early on. I remember sitting in the cornfields of Kansas and I was looking at a map and I was like, damn, I still have a long, long, long way to go to Argentina. And it kind of felt overwhelming. But something I learned from that pretty quick, and something I adopted for the rest of my travels is, you know, it's good to set a big goal, but you got to break it down into checkpoints. So instead of sitting in Kansas and saying, "Oh, I'm going to Argentina." It's like, "Hey, let's get to Colorado. Let's get to Denver."”
“And, you know, you can stack enough of those bricks, then you can step back and then you can see the house you built. And so I think that, um, mentality and lesson is something that helped me carry me on the rest of my travels too. Just take it day by day, checkpoint by checkpoint. And don't worry about that massive goal.”