Traveling Changed My Life, But It Didn’t Solve My Problems

Ask someone on their deathbed what they wish they’d done more of in life and you’ll usually get the same answer.

“I wish I had traveled more.”

Traveling the world is often seen as a right of passage. That thing you do before you begrudgingly join the workforce or settle down with a wife and kids.

For some, it’s their ‘last’ chance to bounce between countries, indulge in exotic food, marvel at foreign women and imagine how different their lives could be.

For others, travel is the catalyst for change. It’s an escape from their problems for a while, the chance at something new – a fresh start.

For me, it was both. Plus something a little more.

I recently returned home from a four-month backpacking trip across Europe and the United Kingdom, and although my life has changed in ways I could have never imagined, my problems that I left with still remain.

Well, at least what I perceive as problems.

Escapism vs. Reality: The Myth of Wanderlust

During my trip, I visited eight countries, explored more than 20 cities and indulged in the most incredible vegetarian food I’ve ever eaten.

It was a trip inspired by ten years of wanderlust. A decade of maybes, what ifs and imagine thats.

It was the first time since graduating high school (ten years ago) where I’ve actually taken time away from work or study to figure out who I want to be and what I want to do with my life.

So you can image my excitement as I sit in a Parisian cafe, sipping on an espresso and eating a croissant just meters away from the Arc de Triomphe.

It was like a scene from a movie, and I was in it. Exhilarating scenes, one after another, as I ventured between countries and experienced all of these incredible new things for the first time.

Until the movie ended.

Or, at least, until it started becoming a movie that I’d already seen a few times over.

When the world’s most amazing cathedrals start to just look like nice buildings. When the people speaking in an exotic foreign language start to to seem no different to you and I (because they aren’t).

When those initial problems that faded start to rear their ugly heads again.

Searching For Purpose Beyond Borders

I admit it, this trip was a search for purpose. A search for something more than what I have back home. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t find it. At least, not in any of the countries I visited.

Like any young man, much of my 20s has been consumed by my search for meaning. It’s been a time of questioning things and trying to figure out if I’m on my own path or on one that people before me have decided is the correct one to take.

I mean, how can you not question life when sitting under those soul-sucking florescent lights in a 9-5 job is considered normal?

Although I didn’t find my ‘purpose’ in any of these countries I visited, I did find the final piece to the puzzle I’ve been slowly solving over the years.

All this stuff is internal.

Happiness Is a Result Of Your Perception

At any given moment, all you have is your perception. A chair is not a chair unless you perceive it as the very definition humans attach to it.

To someone, a cathedral may be the most incredible work of architecture they have ever laid their eyes on. To someone else, it may just be like looking at another building.

Our emotions are the same.

I’m slowly learning that emotions aren’t real. They’re just a result of our perception.

As Marcus Aurelius says in Meditations:

“Disturbance comes only from within – from our own perceptions.”

So if disturbance (our problems) only come from within, then how can we possibly find meaning from an external source?

Well, attaching our feelings and emotions to an external source is much easier than attributing them to our inability to deal with internal perceptions.

Even in extreme circumstances, we have the ability to find meaning internally despite the external conditions.

Holocaust survivor and the author of Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, provides one of the most incredible accounts of this.

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”
Viktor Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning

And the problem we face today is just that. In our modern world of abundance, where all our survival needs are met, what is this cause greater than oneself that we should pursue?

Finding A Cause Greater Than Ourselves

Well that’s what my writing is dedicated to. I believe becoming better every day, mastering our mind, body and spirit, is the greater cause that will lead to a more fulfilling life.

In his book Discipline is Destiny, Ryan Holiday offers a real world approach for this.

“What do we need? The truth: not much. Some food and water. Work that we can challenge ourselves with. A calm mind in the midst of adversity. Sleep. A solid routine. A cause we are committed to. Something we’re getting better at.”

He even goes on to say that anything more than the above can harm us.

“Everything else is extra. Or worse, as history has shown countless times, the source of our painful downfall.”

Gaining Insights From Personal Experiences

Of course it’s easy to read what I’ve written so far and think, ‘well yeah, of course everything is internal’. But you and I both know that’s not how life or our emotions work.

It doesn’t even take much to send us over the edge anymore. All someone has to do to put an end to our peaceful day is cut us off in traffic during our morning commute.

If we were to arrive at work in an angry mood we would say its a result of an external circumstance – someone cutting us off. But really it’s a result of our internal perception of the event and our inability to control our reaction.

The same is true when searching for meaning. We are feeling lost or empty internally, so we search for the answers through external circumstances – travel, money, material possessions.

It’s only after we have these things that we realize they, in themselves, don’t fulfill us.

Sometimes, you can’t just read about it in a book. Sometimes it takes traveling the world and experiencing things yourself to realize it.

But Seriously, Traveling Did Change My Life

So if traveling didn’t fix my perceived ‘problems’, then how did it change my life?

Well for starters, it gave clarity over my thoughts, which I hope I explained clearly enough above.

But apart from that, let me give you a quick list of a few things that I was lucky enough to experience on my journey.

I conquered my fear of flying.

Ate pizza and pasta in Florence, croissants in Paris and tapas in Granada.

Spoke to locals in another language.

Went to Wembley to watch England play Australia in the football.

Got hammered off incredibly cheap and delicious wine in Porto.

Threw my first snowball at the hot baths in Budapest.

Crashed an electric scooter into someone and spent Christmas in Malaga.

Saw the Mona Lisa, walked through the Colosseum, and rode the longest cable-car in the Balkans through Tiranë, Albania.

And, lastly, I realized that I can survive without a routine and all the comforts of home.

So then, would it be cliche for me to end this by telling you that traveling will change your life?

It will.

Just don’t expect it to fix all your problems.

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About the Author: Jack Waters is a former journalist turned creative thinker and writer, on a mission to become better every day and live a more fulfilling life.