So I’m writing this post while travelling with my girlfriend through Thailand. Travelling is not something new for me, but it’s always very exciting when I do. During my travels, I sometimes figure out again who I am, or what I want, but more important, it shows how great life can be whenever you are overrun by life itself. I love travelling and I think everyone should travel at least one time in their life. But while there are a million posts about people who will say “quit your job, quit your boring life and do something adventurous” I here want to approach this topic from a different vantage point.
First things first, if you have never travelled I think you should go out and do it. It doesn’t have to be for 6 months or longer. Most of the time you can figure out if traveling is something for you and get the adventurous feeling in 2 months of travelling around. Which is enough time to get some crazy stories, expand your comfort-zone and to acquire some new life lasting skills. While traveling tickets and the beginning stages of the journey are most of the time one of the most expensive parts of the travel, you should decide for yourself if a longer adventure is not more beneficial for you, looking at time vs costs. If you are still studying, I highly recommend to do an internship in a foreign country, and maybe travel afterwards or during your internship. This way you’ll travel with a goal, which for me has always been more fulfilling then just going around places to watch and see stuff. Besides that, it really stands good on your resume and this way you really take the experience of that big adventure everywhere with you. You also get to learn the people and culture better if you are staying in one place for a longer period of time. Which if I may say, is most of the time also advisable to try to spend more time in one place then just checking off your bucket list and racing around the country or continent.
Now that has been said, what is this post really all about? Well the reason that I write this post is because I have met and meet a lot of people that are travelling around the world. Some of them are already traveling for 2 years, and what I noticed is that some of the people that I meet are not really traveling anymore, they are more and less running away. Running away from their boring old life, from their old job, and old lifestyle. I also know quite some travellers who have settled down, but couldn’t really settle down and seem to be restless. Since settling down and getting a job is not as exciting as traveling, they always have that feeling of getting out again, going back in to the world. Now I am asking to the endless travellers and the restless ex-travellers, why are you travelling and why are you so restless? Is it because your life is boring, you don’t have anything that you are passionate about, you don’t think that you fit into society or do you really don’t know? The thing is, is that travellers have the most awesome stories about the things that they have done, seen and the people they have met, but at a certain time these stories are and will remain just stories. They are not adding anything new to your life, and a lot of ex or ongoing travellers are just looking back to these stories and wonderful times, but also feel miserable inside and are trying to get that same feeling back again. Which is almost like a drug. This is because most of the people have made a new comfort zone and are not learning much new stuff. While that first and maybe second journey was really scary, something new, asked you to learn to adapt, to go by the flow and helped you to develop new skills, the third and fourth journey are just going by really natural and it’s actually just a new life style. After a certain amount of time this can weirdly enough give quite some people an empty feeling.
So what is it that Im getting at? If you have read this the whole way trough, then maybe you have already figured it out by now. Maybe you did already know, but you never took any action. The thing is that you have to find out what you are passionate about, how you want to fill your time in this world, and what kind of lifestyle you want that makes everyday an awesome day. For most people this is about feeling valuable, being loved and adding value to your family, friends, your love, work and society, but also personal growth. What I am trying to get at in this post is to let you think about your dream life. This can be also a travellers life, but do you think you can do that your whole life, and what will happen once you come back in your own country? Try to discover if you are really travelling or just running away from your inner problems and actual purpose. Give yourself a moment to think about this, what kind of life you would really want, the lifestyle that you love, where you want to be in five, ten or five-teen years and start changing your course to get to that life that you want. Once you start making steps to change your life to your dream life and ultimate life goals, you can once again start expanding your comfort-zone in a total different direction and find out that you have skills or talents that you even didn’t knew that you had. Sooner or later most people will settle down, and once that happen, the same problems, issues or even depressed feelings will come back since you didn’t solve your inner issues when you ran away the third time and tried to fix it by finding temporary happiness outside yourself. Travels can be eye opening and make you a better person or you can even find your purpose during your travels, but only if you are willing to learn and think about your life.
So do your self a favor, if you recognise anything that you just read, get into action and give yourself a moment today or tomorrow and start thinking about your life. And more important, don’t start thinking that your dream life isn’t possible, anything is possible. It is the same when you got your diploma after several of years of hard work or when you planned your first trip, it all just took a lot of time, but it was not impossible. Which I guess makes your reward more fulfilling. Keep travels as they are, travels. If you can find a meaning into it, do it by all means, but for yourself don’t do it to escape reality or finding temporary happiness. Life is so much more fulfilling if you live every day with passion and purpose, and this can even be found in your own country or a 9 to 5 job.
Samir
Samir is the author of vSAM.Pro & a Life enthusiast who works as a consultant in the field of IT. With a great passion for Tech & Personal Development, he loves to help people with their problems, but also inspire them with a positive outlook on life.
Besides that, he is also a big Sport & Music junky that loves to spend a big chunk of his time on producing music or physically stretching himself.
