You are sitting in your cubicle ready to drive a dull #2 pencil through your non-dominant hand in desperation.
You have been running your online business for five months, but the eBook sales aren’t quite hacking it anymore and your last product sign-up boasts a roster list of your nana, your Dad, and that weird friend from high school that just won’t stop stalking your Facebook.
Or maybe you just have the vaguely unsettling thoughts that something isn’t quite right in your life.
You feel like you didn’t sign up for this life.
Somehow you started the day emerging from a warm fuzzy dream and found yourself captured in a nightmare that you can’t wake up from.
You aren’t happy. You aren’t unhappy. You. Just. Are.
You start looking for a way out. Someone tells you to run away. Flee to a foreign country and never look back. You’ll take the blue AND the red pill if you need to.
Tropical paradise sounds pretty good right about now, doesn’t it?
Escaping your reality to live somewhere that no one knows “the real you” — this shell of a person you are forced to inhabit “back home.”
Want to live a better life? You should not travel.
Jenny & I lounging on a beach in Bali
If you are booking a one-way ticket to fix yourself, it probably isn’t going to work.
I’m not going to lie. It is pretty easy to love your life when you are sitting on a beach with your SPIRL in lounge chairs watching surfers ride the waves while sipping fruity beverages. I wake up just about every morning and look out the window of the country I’m living in, totally in awe that I get to live this life.
It is a constant reminder of all that is good in the world.
I’ve had my fair share of heartbreak and trials while traveling. This isn’t about telling you all the downsides to location independence. Others with much more experience have articulated that way better than I could.
There are any number of reasons why travel is an essential part of the human experience.
Travel because you want to see the world, expose yourself to new cultures, and maybe try some of that spicy food that you’ve never dared to try before.
Travel because you want to see the compassion and kindness that humanity extends to you as a stranger in an unfamiliar place.
Travel because you are looking for new challenges and adventures.
Travel because your soul is restless and you want to drink all night with international strangers and kiss girls or boys from another country.
Travel because the Western world is fucking ridiculous and it is much easier to bootstrap your start-up when your monthly living expenses are less than $750 monthly.
Travel because not knowing where you are going to live next week but knowing that you have an entire globe of possibilities thrills you in a way that no relationship, job, or material possession ever has before.
Travel because those pictures of Italian vineyards or Carribean beaches or Asian temples or African safaris stir your heart.
Travel because the idea of a new start in a new place with people you don’t know creating a new life keeps you awake at night and invades your thoughts all day long.
Travel because you want to grow and change.
And yes. If you want to drive a dull #2 pencil through your non-dominant hand to make sure you are still capable of feeling something, then by all means, book at ticket today to the travel destination you have always dreamed of.
But you shouldn’t travel if you think it is the only way to fix everything, including yourself.
Very few people actually eat, pray, love themselves into perfection.
Eventually the trip ends and you will need more than a plane ticket to continue finding happiness.
Photo Credit – Vladimir Pashkov
A great friend of mine says “you cant leave yourself behind”!
I think that fits well here.
Steve – Yep, that’s it precisely. You can run across the planet but you can’t escape you.
Right on, man, right on.I actually don’t even like traveling so I couldn’t agree more! Isn’t there that saying? Anywhere you go, there you are. So yeah, traveling won’t fix you.
I wouldn’t say that I wanted to send the message that I don’t like traveling or would encourage people not to travel. As evidence by the uber-long list at the end of the post with reasons people should travel.
But yeah. Definitely agree, traveling along won’t **fix** anyone.
“Eventually the trip ends” … just like a drug. When you come back down, what are you going to do with yourself?
Great post, Elisa
Precisely. If you are building your happiness on one particular experience then your happiness is too fragile.
Traveling should add to your happiness, not be the source of it (why didn’t I just say that?!)
I love how you’re both celebrating what travel IS and making sure you clarify with it ISN’T (a fix-all wonderdrug). Of course, I don’t believe in fix-all wonderdrugs, to begin with, but changing locations and trying something new is always a temptation, and going to a new place to feel like a new person is one of them. I like your preparing for online battle photo. 🙂
I’m with you, I know of no fix-all wonderdrugs that actually work. Usually they’re placebos. Glad that you got both sides of the point I was making. Changing locations and trying something is definitely fun — you know whenever I’m living someplace that has a couch it’s open! 🙂
And yeah, as far as David & I can remember I think I was hardcoding podcasting script and he was analyzing some results after Google Penguin rolled out. Online battles indeed!
I love this so much! I adore traveling but it’s nice to have a base to return to. I have several close friends who are traveling the world + constantly post updates like “flying free, loving life!” which I 110% respect but (and I’m not sure yet how to phrase this without sounding like a jealous killjoy) that’s not sustainable for most people. I used to have the urge to travel the globe instead of building a life in one place and enjoying bouts of travel but in hindsight i was miserable and looking to find something. Funny part is, I found it right where I am and I now enjoy travel more than ever because I can relax instead of looking for something everywhere I go.
Another awesome post!
xo
I think I’m probably one of those close unsustainable people on my friends’ feeds. Though I try to avoid the overly-saccharine updates and focus on cool stuff like ninja Thai jumping spiders I encounter. I agree that it isn’t sustainable for a lot of people. For some it works, for many it won’t. Lots of my friends lead very happy fulfilled lives “at home” in their lives…and many lead happy fulfilled lives traveling the globe. Course there are also too many unhappy in both.
It’s all about finding what makes you happy and then living a life that points towards that as a guiding light. Not making it the reason for doing anything though. Rarely do reasons lie in any one thing. At least in my experience. 🙂
“If you are booking a one-way ticket to fix yourself, it probably isn’t going to work” totally agree, however you may come back a different person in many ways…… I believe that happened to me a long time ago and am so thankful I made the trip! But your right when the trip was over it was like hmmmm whats next for me and my life?
Agree so much! I am a different person in many ways, and in many ways I’m still the exact same person who first bought that ticket. Wouldn’t change a thing and leaving again in October.
But I know too many people that revolve their lives around travel as their means to happiness. So when the means hit their end, so does the happiness. That’s no good! Much better to orchestrate a life you love regardless of situation, location, relationships, possessions, etc, and and then you’ll have it no matter what.