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by lmc
1505 days ago
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Out of interest, where did you go, and what were your reasons for stopping? I think I can relate to a lot of what you say. I'm not saying I'm doing things the right way, but I've met people that you're describing that are basically on a very long holiday. It's a proper cliche, but travel has definitely broadened my horizons. I hope you don't discourage it too much - emphasize travelling with purpose, and when to stop. |
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The choice was to either seize the endless excitement of travel permanently, and further develop my own eccentricities at extraordinary risk of accomplishing little material, or swallowing my pride and acknowledging the dream of travel may have been a substantially emptier experience than originally promised.
This is not to say I did not "develop" - I met numerous people, swap emails, send Christmas gifts, had amazing experiences, and so on, but the question is what permanence these actions and relationships have, and at what cost those experiences are gained. I still itch - regularly - to jump on a plane to a country I have never been before. It is so easy to indulge in that sense of adventure. But I notice this comes most often during times of stress, and nowadays I always weigh that adventure against the actual costs of what I am leaving behind. Due to this, adventure holds very little of the appeal it once did, and I often wonder how many of those life-loving expats I met who did not admit to running from their old lives were still on the run from something, perhaps while living with complete delusion that they were only having fun.
On the other hand I did meet people who had found a real sense of belonging and purpose in their life through the foreign communities they interacted with, but even if I were one of those, over a long time horizon, I don't imagine the outcome to be so much different on every occasion. There are only so many children to educate and schools to build before the satisfaction gives way to the wariness of ones own ephemeral relationship to their environment, the only answer to which is yet more adventure, or the cold reality of going home and discovering what was missed in the meantime.
As another reply suggested - travelling with purpose makes a lot of sense. Some of the most interesting people I met were NGO or higher education placements there temporarily to accomplish a specific task.