Why Traveling Will Hinder Your Personal Growth
Traveling merely creates the illusion of self-growth and only delays the process of self-discovery.
I’d like to think that as people on this planet our overall goal is to find ways in which we can find meaning in everything that we do. All the better would it be if your actions would benefit your surroundings and society in general for the better.
After finishing my undergraduate studies I took some time to think about how I can find meaning within my life and to what extent I possess the power to have a positive influence. It’s been a hard and agonizing time, to say the least.
The story that we’re being told over and over again by other people and the story that we eventually tell ourselves is that meaning can be found in new experiences, such as travel. Watching movies like “Eat, Pray, Love” for example just amplifies the cliché message of going on a journey of self-discovery, which includes eating good food, meeting overly nice and welcoming monks, and eventually running into that dreamy person on the beach for some summer lovin’.
I wish it was that easy, man. It’s not. The thing that I am really trying to bring across here is that there are two very important distinctions to be made: Finding your meaning is not the same thing as finding yourself. The way I think about it is that purpose and meaning are a big part of existence, but it’s not the biggest. On the most basic and fundamental level, the level on which everything else is built upon is yourself and how in touch you are with your consciousness. As people, we like to hide uncomfortable truths and suppress unwanted emotions and carefully select the things we want to feel and thoughts we want to have.
Wherever you are, your mind follows.
At the end of the day, from what I sort of puzzled together, the logical conclusion to finding yourself is subjecting your senses to as little new stimuli as possible. If you break down travel to its core definition, it is essentially the exact opposite: Subjecting your senses to as many new stimuli as possible (eating foreign food, seeing unfamiliar landscapes, smelling foreign aromas, touching new things, and hearing new sounds). Constantly being in a new environment is therefore quite detrimental to your journey of self-discovery, simply because distractions are at an all-time high! These experiences, as much as they are “eye-opening” to some people, therefore just delay the inevitable: That you still have to come to terms with who you are at the core.
Frequent traveling can damage your health in a major way.
A study from the University of Surrey has also shown that frequent travel can also cause serious damage to your physiological and psychological wellbeing:
“The level of physiological, physical and societal stress that frequent travels places upon individuals has potentially serious and long-term negative effects that range from the breaking down of family relationships, to changes in our genes due to lack of sleep.”
Traveling in order to escape your familiar environment and to recharge is super helpful and has overwhelmingly positive effects, however, it is important you are doing it for the right reasons. Learning about the world, about new cultures, and expanding your horizon is not the same as developing your personal growth. There is a fine line, however, you have to distinguish external growth from internal. External self-growth is expanding your knowledge base, how you relate to other people, and developing your social skills, perhaps through travel and meeting new people. Internal growth encompasses your thought processes, how you react to your emotions, and how you can control your mind in a way that is most beneficial to your psyche.
Personal growth happens independent of where you are.
People are a product of their environment. I truly believe that. Traveling, meeting new people and seeing new places, and doing things you’ve never done before is super exciting and can offer you a lot of clarity regarding what you want to do with your life, but will not help you with the journey that is happening inside of you. That inward journey is almost happening on a mythological level, where you come to terms and learn how to fight with your demons and your deepest and darkest thoughts that never see the light of day — your shadow, according to Carl Jung’s archetypes. Think about it, even though you might have the time of your life abroad and truly like the person you thought you have become, the real test awaits when you are back home, back with the same people, same colleagues, and same shitty weather. This is why knowing yourself first is so immensely important in my eyes and why you need to go on this internal journey so badly — to be as content and as has happy, regardless of where you are or who you’re with!
This is the journey that truly matters and that will truly open your eyes. It is a journey that can take a long time, depending on how honest you are with yourself, and can reveal itself as the biggest thing you have ever done and might ever do. Eventually when you reach that light, way at the end of the tunnel, you will see more clearly than you ever have before and all the experiences that come afterward will be all the more amplified and as real as ever, just because you are now looking through the right lens, the lens that shows you how things actually are, and not how you want them to be.
Key takeaway
As someone who has tried to use travel as a catalyst for change, I can tell you that it has not worked. Sure, I thought I had gone on some mystical journey of self-discovery backpacking through Central America for a couple of months, however, a few weeks after my return to the real world, I found myself in my old habits again, and it was as though I had never left. So if you’re currently not happy with how you live your life, try to make changes that don’t require you to escape your environment.
Try out new things, learn a new skill or a new hobby, go to therapy or meet people who share similar interests. That way you can incorporate more meaning into your current life, which will be invaluable compared to spending 2 months in Bali.
