Get off your butt and go already!
You need to trust your gut and go. But to do your own thing, you also need perspective. Pretty much everything can be improved, and the solution is often on the other side. The second look, the upside-down view. The kid’s version. The new perspective.
You also need inspiration. Change the scene. Behave differently. Take a new route. Walk backwards. Jump. Watch others jump. Go somewhere scary. Shut down your gadgets and just look, listen, smell and feel.
You need to figure out the big picture, or at least give yourself the benefit of the wonder that you’ll experience when you do see the bigger picture.
Travel is the cure and the answer for all those needs. Get out and go somewhere new. Do it now and do it often.
We at TCH believe strongly that travel helps not just every individual but also the world at large. The more you see, the more you want to see. The more you see, the less you think your way is the only way. The more you understand others.
In an interview, retired Commander Chris Hadfield – the Canadian guitar-playing astronaut and former commander of the International Space Station – commented on his experience in space. ‘In space, your convictions get heightened. You find yourself laughing and crying much more.’
‘You start to think, about all those people you know in, say, Saskatoon, and how they’re not that different from the people in the city in Africa that you’ve never been to – trying their best, raising their kids – and how your particular set of loves relates to everything else.’
This is what happens on this Earth, too, when you travel and let yourself live a bit differently, and see others live differently.
No text book, degree or diploma will give you the valuable experience of what another city or country can provide
Travel the world, live in other cities, learn cultures. Learn because it keeps your mind young and your ideas developing.
Travelling offers you possibilities. When you’re stuck about what to do next in life, get on a plane and spend time in another country. You not only learn about others, you learn about yourself.
Travel opens up options you never knew you could have. You’ll become clearer on what to do in life or what exactly you should be doing.
Answers become clearer when you are in another country, exploring a different culture. We don’t know why or how, but something triggers answers when you are out of your environment in a place different from yours.
The answers have probably been there all along, but they’ll pop up when you are exploring the globe.
Travel now, not some other time when you have more time, more money, more this or that. Those days may never come and you may never have enough if this is your attitude.
Just make it work now. Experience is far more valuable than money will ever be. The less you need, the richer the experience. Your true value is what is left if you lost everything you own.
When you are old, it is your memories that you have to feast on. Don’t make those be regrets. Don’t be one of those who says: I wish I had, Why didn’t I, When I still could I should have…
The only thing constant is change, so you have to learn to embrace it.
We think we’ve figured the Answer to Life – and no, it is not 42. It is about moving forward. Whatever tragedy you face – and you will: you may lose a parent or someone close dies from cancer, you will go through heartache, a divorce, an end of some sort – and you cannot remain in that place of grief and heartache and worry forever.
You have to keep on moving forward, no matter what. Don’t look back, keep moving forward. Pain is temporary, it may last for an hour or a year but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. Just keep moving forward. Travel is an incredible cure for the pain in life.
Everyone keeps being amazed at how quickly life passes by, so do yourself a favour, don’t think about it any longer – make a choice, just decide, book your ticket and explore the world and keep on doing it, year after year after year, a new city, a new experience.
You’ll become far more interesting than the person you are now. And you will learn to love life on a totally different level.
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions”, says the Dalai Lama
Make your life a wonderful adventure.
