The Gods Must Be Crazy

Traveling Redefinition.

kartini:

Have you ever thought the real reason you’re traveling? More often, people said they travel because they want to see the world, to embrace new knowledge, to immerse with unknown culture, and many reasons that seems pretty common for avid traveler. But, the unmentioned real reason is escapism. Yes, people travel actually because they want to escape. Escape from their boring monotonous life, their recent break ups, their downward spiral depression and such. 

Now, the question is, do you really want to escape?

I once read a great article about traveling, it said something like “no matter how far you travel, the problems you think you left behind is actually following you wherever you go”. And, that happened to most travelers. I knew some people, who came after their long trip changed..but for worse. They felt this post trip depression and hating their current life more and more. Or, they became this traveler snob who thought they are superior than people who do less travel. Either way are bad. Let me be frank: Traveling won’t omit your problems, traveling won’t erase your past, traveling won’t heal your heart break. It just won’t. People’s fallacy is to think otherwise. The pleasant feeling of traveling only last as long as you travel. Once you finished, boom, it vanished. Then you become these people who always complaining in between their traveling times, under the shallow understanding that they are only happy when they travel. It’s sad, isn’t it? People should be happy wherever and whenever they are in life.

Lao Tzu once said “He who returns from a journey, is not the same as he who left.” And like I said before, yes, you’ll definitely change after any traveling trips. But, the question is, do you change for better or for worse? Having a clarity on one’s definition of traveling is needed. The money and time you invest for traveling should not go into waste. And, how to do this? By contemplating the real reason of traveling. Just like life’s rule of thumb, every time you signing up on something for wrong reason, you’ll end up regret doing that. 

In the end, all I can ask are, do you really travel for a right reason? are you doing this to benefit yourself, to progress your maturity, to establish your inner sense? Or, are you doing this anything but;like to impress others or to get many passport stamps as much as possible without seeing the real meaning behind it?

Let’s contemplate over this before you start booking a new ticket. Traveling should be a precious experience that will enable you to become a much better human being, when you’re back into a real life. Not the other way around :)

Jakarta, 4 Feb 2013

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Ouch, this may hit a little too close to home.