The Ever-Changing Self
How travel is a catalyst in shaping your sense of self.
What is your true self?
If I were to ask you to explain your true ‘self’ to me, I’m pretty sure you would give me an answer. You might describe your true ‘self’ through the lens of your culture, your family, your religion, your appearance, or even your social circle. If you asked me right now, I would tell you that I am a plus-sized woman, a traveler, an adventurer, an open-minded knowledge-seeker, and a creator.
But the real question is: how did you arrive at that answer of what your true ‘self’ really is?
Each of us has become our current selves through a series of processes. Buddhist belief/knowledge is that our self is what it is right now in this moment, but is also in a constant state of change and will certainly be different later. Single events, like staying in a rural village in Ghana, can be a catalyst for extreme change.
But are we really going to be that changed from one day to the next?
For me, I know if you had asked what my true self was a week ago, my answer would have been the same as it is today. But if you had asked me two years ago, my answer would have been very different. I may have answered something more like this: I’m a wife, a daughter, a recent graduate, a marketing professional, a California girl, and a traveler.
Although those all still apply, they are not the first things I would say about the truth of my self today. There is a definite, gradual change that I would not have noticed on a daily basis, but is huge now that I look back over time.
It is similar to losing weight. You don’t see the one-pound drop off or feel extremely different from one day to the next. But, after a couple of months when your pants are loose and your shirts fit better, you notice the massive difference your healthy changes have accomplished. There is a gradual change that you did not notice all at once but is apparent over time.
Our sense of self
Buddhist traditions teach that we are all changing in every aspect at all times. Nothing is a static unchanging entity.
If you told me two years ago to create articles to be published online, I would have laughed at you. Now, I publish regularly and consider myself a writer and creator.
When you look at your self, ask the question: how did I become this person?
Disruptions like traveling boost the rate at which you change making your sense of self evolve rapidly. As an overweight woman with spine, shoulder, and knee injuries, a year ago I would have said I am an adventure seeker, not a thrill-seeker. After jumping off a bridge and swinging 1,000 feet across a canyon earlier this year — I have firmly redefined my sense of self!
How my time in a Ghanaian village changed my sense of self and made the entire world seem wasteful.
We are ever-changing beings in our physical, mental, and spiritual realms. Our definition of ‘self’ changes constantly. One of the many reasons we travel is to change and evolve. Even if that is not your goal of traveling, often you will have no choice but to change.
Coming from the United States where we have so much abundance and availability of food, I did not truly understand what food scarcity meant. I had my eyes opened to the horrors of poverty while traveling in India, so I thought I understood what scarcity looked like. But it looked different in Ghana.
While visiting Ghana I had the opportunity to be hosted by a family in a rural village. I knew that my few days with them would teach me a lot about their culture, customs, and village life. I knew my stay wouldn’t be easy, but I had no idea how much it would change me.
The first day we were greeted with smiling faces and the entire village gathered around to grant me my honorary Ghanaian name: Aku Xdese. Then I was led by most host family back to their homes — mud packed huts with thatched roofs.
I was staying with a large extended family full of lots of children, several women, and a few men with one of the tribe’s patriarchs. The huts were sparsely appointed with straw-stuffed sheets as beds and pillowcases stuffed with dried beans as pillows.
After many introductions, being shown to my bed space (it belonged to one of the women, but she would be sharing with her sister during my stay), and learning that the restrooms were anywhere outside that you wanted, I was invited to dinner with the patriarch. To help prepare dinner, I helped the women carry water from the river back to the village. It was a chore that had to be done every single day, sometimes multiple times a day.
As the patriarch’s guest of honor, he shared the meal with me first — the women and children would eat only after we were done. The meal for all 20+ of us was a single whole chicken cooked in a tomato broth with a pan of sticky fufu (a starchy flavorless bread-like substance) for us to eat it with.
And he reserved the very best of the meal for me: the bones of the chicken.
Back home after that experience, the entire world seemed wasteful. My roommate at the time would run the tap while she brushed her teeth (something she did before I left that had never bothered me) and complain and toss away any water that “tasted weird.” She didn’t understand how seeing the water being wasted hurt me — I didn’t understand how she could be so wasteful.
But she hadn’t changed; it was me and my sense of self that had changed. My sense of self had become less personally and selfishly motivated; my sense of self was now in conjunction with those that were in poverty around the world. And my actions (to be less wasteful) had to align with my new sense of self.
Now when I plan meals for my husband and me, I am careful to shop for exactly what I need and not let my food go to waste. I remember what it was like to be hungry. I remember what it was like to gnaw on chicken bones and not waste a morsel. I know that experience has shaped how I view the privilege of my current food and water abundance, and important aspects of my sense of self changed dramatically during that one short experience.
Your self continues to change and evolve every day.
Every single thing you experience while traveling is (at least slightly) different from what it was at home. You find yourself immersed in cultures and you are changed by those cultures, foods, customs, traditions, architecture, and anything and everything else you encounter.
You can’t help but change.
As we travel, we have to learn new things; everything we see and do in each new place shapes us and helps us to grow, even if it is incrementally small. As we travel we place ourselves in a situation of sink or swim, and the only way for all of us to really swim is if we can change and learn to adapt.
I fully believe that we can and do know our identity, but I believe that we can only know our identity at a particular moment. There is no way for us to say what our ‘self’ is for our entire lives. We have no way of knowing how we will change in a year or even in an hour. The only ‘self’ we can know, is the ‘self’ we see and are aware of at this very moment.
And I’m looking forward to meeting the new ‘self’ I am creating every day.
Leana’s an avid world traveler who has been to over 40 countries and will be venturing to her 7th continent in 2022. She believes in ubuntu and that adventures make life worth living. To follow her journey as a plus-sized woman with unquenchable wanderlust as she continues to seek out all that the world has to offer, you can check out The Overweight Adventurer.
