Travelling helps you find Answers to the Soul Searching Questions!

Some of us spend our entire life searching for answers to the question, of why are we on this planet. Travelling and Experiencing your life seems to be an amazing way of finding answers. Check out Marika’s reflection on how Travelling helped her.

By: Marika

I believe that traveling is something everyone one should try at least once in their life. It can help shift your mindset and change your attitudes or even positively change your current situation in life. In the end, choosing to stop my media degree and working two jobs 6 days a week (sometimes twenty-three hours days) just to save for my overseas trip turned out to be the best thing I have done for myself.

Like many young people, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and I was plagued with doubt about whether I was making the right decision with my degree. I was always asking myself: “Will I find work anyway?” You know the typical mid-life, or should I say early-life, crisis questions a 19-year-old asks themselves, even if we are told we’re still young and have plenty of time to work it out. But really how do you know what you want to do after spending majority of your life in a classroom?

This is where traveling helped me a lot. No, I did not climb to a top of a mountain in Tibet do some monastic chanting and magically discover my true calling. But my travels did make me realize a lot of things about my life and myself. They broadened my perspective and made me more open-minded and this is a really important trait to develop, I think. I feel like I’ve changed in so many ways it’s hard to express them all.

The most memorable experience out of all my travels was at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Here, like-minded people from all over the world gathered to support this great cause which was preventing the abuse and suffering of elephants through the impact of the tourism and logging industries.

But honestly, no matter how beautiful or picturesque the scenery was or how good the food was (and I mean mouth-watering!), it was always the people that truly made the place.

All sorts of people leave an impression on you and offer a fresh outlook on how to view life. I met a successful lawyer, two engineers, and groups of corporate people who all had high-pressure careers (many of whom dropped everything because they realized they weren’t happy and wanted a change in life) to couples who’d been traveling for two years on nothing, just picking up jobs along the way. It made me see how there is not one way of living life. I also learned that no matter what age you are, you can drop everything and change your situation. After all it’s your life; your decisions, your consequences and anyway – who said you can’t? Success and happiness are measured by your standards and no one else’s.

If I have one piece of advice to you, it is to go to places and be productive in areas you are passionate about because the chances are, you will meet the right people and maybe even find your answers. That’s what happened for me and wasn’t even expecting it.
Me being honest and real with you, if you feel stuck in life right now and really need to make a change – go explore the world. I can’t recommend it enough. Even if you’re not a soul-seeking adventurer and just want to have fun it will still surprise and astound you. You will create long lasting friendships and memories that will stay with you forever, as clichéd as that sounds: it’s true. Go find out for yourself, Experience Your Life!