Venture Forth
“Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present”
-Roger Babson
If you’re like me, then you constantly read self-improvement articles, books, etc. In those you’ll usually see tips from successful people that can vary from everything from making your bed in the morning to being a kinder person. One that I constantly see over and over again is to travel. They talk about exploring this great big earth and learn from the experiences of the places and people you travel to. This sounds simple because everyone likes to travel. We like exploring new places and getting away from the routine of our everyday lives. So, why don’t we? It’s something we talk about; want to do, plan, and then we don’t always follow through. So many people I speak to talk about these “bucket lists” of where they want to go and see, but they remain on the bucket list. We can say that work gets in the way, it’s expensive, it’s not a good time, it’s more difficult to go on vacation than stay at work, etc., etc. We can create a million reasons as to why we can’t travel more, but if we truly want to do it there is no reason why we can’t.
My Excuses
I love to travel, I like new experiences, and I like seeing what this world has to offer. For me travel has become more difficult. The amount of walking on a trip is typically a lot, whether it is through an airport, after your arrival on an excursion, or maybe your entire destination requires some walking in any case that became a problem for me. Since I have my drop foot and limp, which results in a side-to-side type of walk, it requires a lot of effort. Also, when you walk like that you elicit a lot of stares and questions. These things held me back for a long time. I was uncomfortable in these situations and I avoided them. When I was a salesperson the traveling made me hate the job. It should have been fun, but for my own personal reasons it made things miserable. These issues haven’t changed, but I’ve found that I don’t need to walk fast. I don’t need to hurry, and frankly I don’t care about people staring at me. It is a common occurrence and I’ve gotten used to it. What I have found is that the rewards of traveling far outweigh any of these negatives, and I might go experience as much as I want on my own terms.
Why should we Travel
Hit the reset button. You can relax, clear your mind and refocus for when you get back to everyday activities. As we can get caught up in the mundane activities of life we can become disenchanted and therefore less productive. When we take a step back to relax then we can become reenergized about life and come back looking to accomplish much more.
Gain a better understanding of the world around us. We can get so caught up in our small place in the world, and forget how enormous the earth is. We can see how others live, what they focus on, and what they give value to. These things are usually different than our own, and it can help us reevaluate what’s important to us in this life.
Bring out our highest happiness. When we travel we get to relax, we get away from work, and we can be ourselves. When you travel you’re happy, those around you are happy, so why not do this more often? You have days you can take from work, use them and when you get back you’ll probably be more productive.
Final Excuse
I don’t have anyone to travel with. You get to an age and it becomes difficult to coordinate with friends, and if you have no significant other then who are you to travel with? Yourself, you have always been there for yourself so why not explore the world alone. I am currently taking a cruise by myself (no, it’s not a singles cruise…smh). My friends are scattered around the tri-state area, people are married, have kids, etc. So, coordinating travel dates is almost impossible, but yet I still want to get away so sometimes we must just venture forth. Enjoy our alone time, understand ourselves, meet new people, and enjoy the benefits that traveling can bring to your life. Get out there and enjoy, you’ll surely bring more life to your own life.