Our (Limited) Search for Purpose Through Travel
Whether it’s for spring break bonding trips to Cabo, pivotal semesters abroad in Europe, or soul searching escapes to the local mountains, traveling holds a particular weight and meaning for our generation. Millennials can’t get away enough. It seems like every 4–6 weeks, the interval at which we get disgusted with our lives and jobs, we feel an overwhelming need to pack up our bags and grab the next overstuffed budget airline out of the country (which is no doubt, the cure for our apathy).
And then there’s the occasional pang of jealousy when we see Facebook posts of couples who have sold everything they own and have decided to travel the world on a yacht. “They’re living the dream!!” proclaim overworked young adults desperate to find any escape from the relatively monotonous life of an undergrad or a new employee.
But what does this perpetual wanderlust tell us about our generation? At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, I am a millennial who has never lived in one place for more than 4 years: I have lived in 6 different countries spanning 3 different continents. I feel I have a different perspective on the topic of traveling and wanderlust. I believe the urge to travel all comes down to one thing: balance, or the lack of it.
What is this balance? The balance between a solid foundation and a sense of purpose.
The advent of the internet has given us, the millennial generation, a plethora of career opportunities. Although the price of a college education has also grown to an exorbitant amount, it has truly never been easier for the average person to find a topic of interest (Google, Wikipedia), learn about it solely through online resources (Coursera, MIT OpenCourseWare), and find a career opportunity — even if it’s on the opposite side of the world (LinkedIn, Upwork).
Although career opportunities give us a solid monetary foundation, this stability is often the final nail in the coffin in our search for purpose. We are born passionate and wonder-filled, eager to explore the world around us and live in the moment; slowly but surely, this wonder is drained away from us as we are sat in classrooms, graded based on a uniform scale, and for some of us (shout out to my fellow Asians!) forced to think about our future career from the time we enter middle school. Once our career path is finalized and we have obtained stability, we think we’ve done it! We’ve gone through nearly 20 years of schooling, endless exams, and constant stress to finally arrive at our goal of … wait, what was the point of all this again? In the process of conformity, we’ve forgotten our childhood wonder and passion!
… and so we look at travelling in the same way we look at Friday nights out: a reminder that there is more to life than the humdrum of a 9–5 or the monotony of an undergraduate lifestyle. But the problem with these escapes is that they are temporary. Anyone who has travelled can attest to the withdrawal symptoms that occur the first week back on the grind. Or the Monday mornings after a solid weekend out on the town (in addition to the searing Sunday hangover).
Again at the risk of sounding sanctimonious, I have discovered my own sense of passion through entrepreneurship and several other side pursuits. I can attest to the fact that all the wonderful benefits from travelling can be obtained in our daily lives by simply living in the moment, and trying new things. For example:
Meeting New People. One of the most common reasons we give for travelling often is that our current entourage is boring us, and that we need to find new people with different interests. But what about travelling binds people together? The excitement of a new experience being shared with another person. Have we really exhausted all the new experiences in our city so much that we need to travel to find new ones? There are so many activities that are a Google search away within our own city — we need to get rid of our hesitation and dive into that Spanish language tandem with some of the native Spanish speakers in our school or finally invite one of our old high school friends for dinner together. Human connections aren’t limited by where we find ourselves: travelling simply forces us to connect as we are forced to step out of our comfort zones. Acquaintances often become friends when you share out of the ordinary experiences, whether that’s talking late into the night, exploring a new part of town, or trying to figure out what your Erdos-Bacon number is.
Learning New Things. Traveling can indeed be a fantastic way to sharpen our skills or learn something completely new altogether (for example, scuba diving in the Maldives or kickboxing in Thailand). But sometimes, only associating learning new things with travelling becomes an excuse not to learn anything when you’re not travelling. Learning is a proactive activity, and is not dependent on location; traveling only ignites our proactivity due to the feeling that we are free in a new environment. This feeling is something we can ignite on a daily basis. There are, of course, certain things that can only be learned to a high level in specific countries — e.g. the local language’s idioms. However, in reality, we can also continue to learn wherever we are by staying actively curious about the things we see or hear (or smell) around us.
The Balance is Closer Than We Think
Don’t get me wrong — travelling is an incredibly enriching part of a healthy lifestyle that often inspires and rewires our minds. The problem is that our generation is starting to view it as an escape from our daily lives, rather than an self-improving activity to supplement our lives every once in a while. As mentioned before, a similarity can be drawn between wanderlust and partying, even down to the withdrawal symptoms after traveling or a night out.
For the sake of our mental health, our daily lives should not need any escape. If we can respond to the reasons we’re searching for an escape through seeking new ideas or provoking our curiosity, maybe we can find a sense of purpose right where we are.
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Speaking of meeting new people, if you want to improve your conversation skills, you’d better read:
Also, if you do find yourself needing to wander…check this out:
