Travel Is Not How to Find Yourself, It Is How to Escape Yourself

I love to travel. In the past years, I have escaped to places that I could never have planned. I have lived in three different countries, embarked to the other side of the world, and crossed it many times in between.

All of this to say that travel is one of the most exciting and inspiring experiences one might have. Although the title might indicate traveling could be a bad thing, it is quite the opposite. Traveling is a good thing — one of the best, actually.

Nonetheless, one of our generation’s biggest problems is, in my opinion, forgetting the mundane moments that are what make our lives unique.

Millennials have traveled more and further than our parents have in their lifetime, and the generation before couldn’t even imagine. But with so much in their luggage, they still want to go further and further to ‘find themselves.’

The experiences that one has through travel are unique. It opens your soul to a distinct reality. It exposes you to a whole different culture and connects you to new faces and places. It puts our smallness into perspective in this immense world we live in.

Those days, weeks, or even months that you spend traveling are not your reality. It is a small fragment that you take from that place and time. It is up to you to learn ways of life or even new ways about yourself. And it also up to you to these learnings back home and make these learnings part of your reality.

And amongst all these learnings, the biggest and simplest one is to leave your comfort zone.

I get it. It is hard to enjoy your everyday life within the office. To sit in front of a computer and do your daily work. But that’s your life. If you want to change your reality, you must change these everyday moments, implement ways to make your everyday life better.

Mundane things like these that we praise so much when we go to a new country are worth living right here, right now. Simple acts like this make you leave your comfort zone, and you don’t even have to pay hundreds on a flight.

Once, I’ve read that one meaningful life is better than a hundred short adventures.

And probably just once you have the opportunity of ticking a number of your bucket list places that you will come into this realization. At least this is what has taken me to realize.

See this great planet we live on. Create new life views that go beyond your studio window. But don’t fool yourself that anything that is beyond it is Eden. Once you forget this idealistic idea of finding meaning in life when you are on the road, you will come to see that meaning is already within you.

The bad news is that you won’t find yourself through traveling. The good news is that you will find yourself whenever and wherever you are. Each moment that goes by, and you are drinking your coffee can be that moment.

And then, only then, those hundred adventures will have meaning.