How great does it feel when you think about traveling across the world- visiting the mountains, the sea, going to villages no one’s ever even heard of, and exploring corners which still remain untouched. But does that really work out? The 9-5 desk job frustrate you, so you want to escape that boring life to get onto a new adventure, meet new people, travel new places, and experience something fresh and exciting. Although there’s nothing wrong with that, we naively assume that these things are going to make us happier long term. The truth is they won’t. Let us first examine the practicality of this whole endeavor.
First of all, traveling isn’t for free. So until and unless your bank account balance is huge, you have to seriously think about your little trip around the world. Now you may wonder, ‘what if I start saving money today?’ Well, that is great, but you will still run out of it eventually. That is when reality strikes you on your face, and you fall flat on the desk again. The real problem is, instead of wisely figuring out what you want from life, you want to impulsively make decisions, and hope everything turns out well. The truth is, not all of us really want to travel, most of us just need a break. For a short while you may be very satisfied with your decision about quitting the cubicle, and “investing in experiences and not materialistic objects”, but you’ll soon realize you are still missing out on something. This is because you have chosen to cover up the actual problem and you are instead addressing the symptoms, not the core problem.
You can’t travel for the sake of traveling, or because that is the only option. You need to figure what you want to do in life, where do you want to see yourself in 2 years and 20 years. It is like, in life if your plot doesn’t have a story, your incidents are just disturbances. You can’t just visit Kasol and expect to find purpose of your existence. Even in traveling, not all experiences are fun- you may have to sleep in extreme conditions, you may have to remain hungry for a long while, you may be broke, you may get robbed, you may fall down and hurt yourself. But the actually fun is the learning part. Even the long-term travelers feel lost, even though they have tons of stories to tell, even though their lives aren’t still figured out.
Traveling isn’t about running away from your lives, leaving things as they are and running off to another world. If you want to be happy, you need to sit down, doesn’t matter if it is in your office cubicle or on Mount Kilimanjaro, but you need to start thinking, testing and see what things give life to your existence.
“Happiness does not come from single events. Happiness does not come from leaving your ordinary life behind. Happiness does not come from avoiding your problems.”
The best option is to balance adventure and work. If you save enough money to go backpacking once or twice a year, and work diligently for the rest of the year, you’ll be content with that one trip. The other thing is to find the work you love, “instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”
About Carson Derrow
