Travel As Far As You Can

My advice to people in their 20s is always this: TRAVEL.

Travel as far as you can.

For some, that may be walking to the neighboring village; for others, it may be the other side of the world.

Geography's irrelevant; you need a change of perspective, challenging ideologies, and the realization that there are infinite ways to live life, and yours may be wholly unsuited to you.

You must be prepared to leave the security of habituation, the comfort and insularity of your "known" environment, and step into a world aching to be explored.

In exploring the outer, curiously, you'll inevitably stumble across the realization that you have begun to charter the inner also. Each threshold you cross is another road to uncovering the intimate call of your psyche. The call of the wild, as Kerouac expressed.

Eventually, free from social, historical, and environmental buffers, you'll find yourself silently pulled by your bliss. Your job is to heed Joseph Campbell's advice and allow yourself to follow it.

We must recognize that our experiences are cheapened if they have not come from a deep inner connection with life. If they're not a result of a deep, yearning curiosity to carve your own ideologies and insights rather than move into adult maturity having been the submissive receptacle of other people's conventions, taboos, and fears.

Travel, in any form, is the greatest remedy for a mind allergic to stale dogmas and institutional vacuousness.

Travel hones intelligence, creativity, humility, and curiosity. It provides the perspective needed to honestly asses the historical linguistic nexus point you were born into. The co-ordinates that have most likely governed your youth.

It forces you to confront often uncomfortable realities and emerge on the other side with a more discerning judgment and a deep, enduring curiosity for the mystery of life.

Ignore the ignorant well-wishers wanting to place you into a neatly defined box.

Explore.

Seek vulnerablity.

Spend your 20s finding your rhythm.