The Cost of Going to the Moon: A Journey of Self-Discovery

How much would you pay to go to the moon?

(A reflection inspired by my book About Life, Choices, and Potholes)

I’ve often wondered what it would feel like to leave everything behind — not metaphorically, but literally. To board a spacecraft, strap in, and watch Earth shrink into a soft blue marble, carrying within it every joy, heartbreak, and unanswered email I’ve ever known.

If you asked me how much I’d pay to go to the moon, my first instinct would be: everything I own. Not because I’m obsessed with space, but because the idea of distance — of being far enough to see life clearly — has always fascinated me.

You see, sometimes we don’t need to fly to the moon to realize how much we’ve been orbiting things that don’t really matter.

When I wrote About Life, Choices, and Potholes, I was in my own kind of launch sequence — leaving behind a career, a country, and a version of myself that no longer fit. I wasn’t chasing adventure; I was chasing clarity. I wanted to look at my life the way astronauts look at Earth — with awe, distance, and a touch of melancholy.

The truth is, the moon is a metaphor.

For that dream we’ve shelved.

For that risk we’ve postponed.

For that version of us we’ve never had the courage to meet.

And just like a lunar mission, the journey costs something — not in dollars, but in comfort, predictability, and the illusion of control.

Leaving the life I built in the US and starting over in India felt, in many ways, like stepping into space. Weightless. Directionless. Terrifying. But also — breathtakingly free. It forced me to question what “home” meant, what success really looked like, and what I was willing to lose in order to find myself again.

So if you ask me now, how much would I pay to go to the moon?

Maybe not everything — because I’ve learned the real magic isn’t up there. It’s right here, in the messy middle of life, where the ground is uneven, the potholes deep, but the view — when you look up — just as vast.

In About Life, Choices, and Potholes, I write about these earthly moons — the leaps that cost us something but bring us closer to who we truly are. Maybe we don’t all get to walk on the moon. But if we’re lucky, we get to walk ourselves home.