I Traveled After 9 Years
Here are my reflections…
I traveled to my hometown after 9 LONG years. I didn’t expect it to be this boring… yet calming. Here are a few thoughts I reflected upon after this traveling experience.
Stress-Free and Free to Roam
I’ve seen a drastic effect on my health whenever I’d feel stressed: low-quality sleep, poor digestion, and poor mental health. All forced me to try to decrease my stress levels, even though I have a ton of reasons to worry.
It’s much better to not stress out because you don’t get anything out of it anyway.
In these 4 days, while I was exploring my hometown, I realized how calming and soothing it was. I didn’t stress over anything. I’d eat anything I wanted without thinking about my health goals. I’d enjoy little things which I wouldn’t do daily, which makes me think about why people travel so often. Because it leaves them stress-free. They disconnect from their life, all the stress, worries, responsibilities, and whatnot. And they just chill. Feel the sunshine on their face, the chilled water of rural areas. And the experience of the Beauty of nature and greenery everywhere.
It’s calming and soothing.
My Self-Absorption Lowered
Back home, I could think about one thing — my life. Which makes me live in my head most of the time. It’s not that I’m narcissistic, I’m just concerned by the details my life.
But in my hometown, I didn’t think of this.
- I shared my food with my sibling (which I wouldn’t in general).
- I understood and empathized more.
- Became more accommodating and considerate.
My self-absorption, (me thinking about my life all day long) was reduced to a large extent.
The more you grow, the more your self-absorption decreases. You start to pay attention to others. This doesn’t mean that I prioritized them over my me-time. But I learned to balance things better. Paid heed to them and to myself too.
Failed At Social Skills
Did I mention I’m an introvert?
Ask me to talk to somebody and you’ll find me 20 miles away. So while I know my narcissism level is functional, somehow my anxiety isn’t. I always feel people are judging me. They’re paying attention to my hair, pimple marks, and my thin stature (because I lost weight recently).
Because of the anxiety, I missed out on interacting with friendly I might like.
I was never at ease with myself. So while I thought I was modern, self-educated, and a city girl who wouldn’t get nervous talking to people, I sucked at it. Partly because I didn’t want to talk and partly because I was nervous and shy.
But anyone can become confident. You and I can learn confidence. Confidence is how much at ease you are with yourself.
Being confident boils down to simple things you put so much effort into. I consider my looks as THE most important factor for my confidence. To a certain extent, it depends on my mood as well. A lot depends on how well I perceive myself.
So confidence stems from the self-image you have about yourself in your mind. Then that’s how you carry yourself. If you think bad about yourself — no wonder you won’t carry yourself with good energy (respect, confidence, etc). And other people will sense this. This will create an image of you in their minds. For example, if you’re insecure about yourself, people will think you’re under-confident.
Work on your inner environment. If not, you might find yourself be awkward when you’d rather not be.
I Became More Carefree
“Finished my deep work, still a lot of things to do, I need to do my skincare, hit 10k steps, drink juice, and… Oh god, time’s running!!”
This is the conversation running in my head every day. But when I was in my hometown, I wouldn’t care about how early I wam waking up. Am I reading? Am I eating clean? Am I drinking enough water? None of these thoughts. I was just living and enjoying my day.
In general, I dislike this life where you aren’t concerned about your basic needs. But there’s a weird sense of calmness in rural areas. People in developed cities are chasing materialistic things like crazy.
And I get it. I’m not asking you to slow down or stop. But in my village, people were living a normal life. No TV, no social media, just nature, good food, and nice people to live with. Pretty boring… but such a stress-free life.
My grandma has grown all kinds of vegetables and flowers in her garden. I ate cucumbers she grew herself. What’s better than that?
Fitting-In Decreased
Do you know why divorce rates are increasing at an alarming rate? Because females ain’t tolerating bullshit anymore. In cities, if you shout at your wife or fight, she will go to her parents’ home and stay there for months or years. I’ve seen such experiences.
But in the village, even if you impregnate the lady for the 6th time, she won’t utter a single word. Even if you beat her or drink— she wouldn’t call the police. I’m very much aware of the fact that education and freedom help women. It’s a privilege, and yet, it’s the least society can do for us.
And whatever is changing, it’s changing for the good. I expect more women to rise beyond these bullshit rules of society, and resist adjusting to societal norms.
Going back to a rural environment reminded me of how much society has progress — and failed to progress in some areas.
Guilty And Cheated
While it’s easy to write “becoming my better version and sharing my process” on my Twitter bio, it’s sometimes hard to keep up.
From balushahi to gulab, jamun to laddu, I tried all sorts of sweets. I thought it’d affect my digestion but thank goodness it didn’t.
I maintained my morning and evening walks, and 10k steps for more than 6 months, with unwavering discipline.
But I let myself try some sweets I loved. I didn’t put a cap on my diet. I let my senses go crazy. After 6 months of eating clean, moving more, and deep work, taking a break for 4 days and eating anything wouldn’t make much difference. At least, that’s my reasoning! What do you think?
I can’t help my sweet cravings. What I can certainly do is maintain healthy levels of protein. Protein keeps you full for a longer time and decreases the ghrelin hormone, which will not let you crave sugar.
Also posting sticky notes like these
will help in case you also have a sweet tooth like me.
Drama Everywhere
When you expose yourself to people, you also expose to a lot of drama
Even though we’re told girls are supposed to love gossip, I hate it. So much so that I take pride in it. I’m not somebody who speaks behind people’s back and shares confidential info from here and there.
Whenever other people ask me to join in with gossiping, I withdraw. It’s an utter waste of one’s time. But when you are at a family function, people judge and gossip with or about you. It was energy-draining to ignore it and try to avoid such people.
I realized I paid attention to them because of my people-pleasing nature. When someone’s talking to me and I don’t pay attention to them, it would upset them. People getting upset is a nightmare for a people pleaser. So while I wanted to do tone it all out, I couldn’t help but pay attention.
I need to get better at this. Giving your energy to anyone is self-care. We should practice often.
NOT Expecting Too Much From Life
Since I was traveling for the first time in 9 years, I was excited. I planned and expected too much. But when nothing exciting happened, I felt disheartened like a 5-year-old girl. Made me realize I should not expect too much from the future and just live in the present moment. When you don’t expect anything, you’ll notice SO MANY wonderful things.
Pros
- You become water. Living in the same place for years makes you rigid. If you don’t get the same breakfast or lunch or dinner at the same time you cry like a baby. But when you keep traveling, you adjust, and you become water. You can fit into any vessel. This can be your competitive advantage.
- Self-awareness gets deeper. I didn’t know how much I love my routine because it made me so comfortable. I didn’t know being with myself all the time was out of my comfort zone. I also didn’t know I could come across as obnoxious at times because I speak my mind. Realized it all through this traveling experience. While people use traveling to escape from their life to soothe their anxiety, you can use it to become more self-aware. Again — it’s a choice.
- Stress-free hours. Traveling to my village after 9 years was calming and soothing. I didn’t do yoga or meditation there because, in my village, I didn’t have stress in the first place.
Cons
- Exhausting. While traveling was calming and soothing. Traveling on the train was exhausting. And people judging me for my body, face, color, and whatnot was draining.
- Affects health. A sound sleep is hard to achieve when you’re traveling via train. Thus it affects your digestion, and in turn your mental health. So, one day I binge ate. And yesterday I ate only fruit. It affects you to a certain extent, and the effects are hard to shake off.
- Productivity decreased. A family function will let you do your work? Think again. And that’s why my productivity went downhill. Thank goodness, I still did the bare minimum. But again, productivity and deep work are not something you should expect when you’re traveling with family.
Final Thoughts
Traveling with family is a great idea. My favorite travel partner is my mother who can handle anything.
But I still wanna travel alone. I have had solo dates a few times in 2022. And if I were to compare traveling with family or friends vs solo travel? I’d opt for solo traveling anytime.
Lemme know your travel experiences! Would you like to hear more about my experiences? Please say yes…
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