Travelling can be very very dangerous.
Ya. You read it right. Travel can be very dangerous to your
mind and to life as you know it now. I
initially travelled to escape the boredom of work and routine like most people,
but it soon became an obsession and I found myself travelling or day dreaming
about it. My travel days increased from long weekends to weeks that sometimes
crossed a month. My tryst with Western and Eastern Ghats made me bold to try
the mighty Himalayas. My successful attempts at traveling with strangers closer
to home in a trek club further emboldened me to go across to the other end of
the country to states that I knew no local language or customs all alone.
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| Rays of Hope - New Light, New Perspectives |
The goodness that people from similar backgrounds showed me on
my weekend escapades made me believe that complete strangers will show the same
goodness to me. And when those strangers
showed me love and compassion that I never knew was possible, made me believe I
can travel to remotest parts of India without even knowing the language and
expect the same kindness from there.
From looking at the holiday calendar for long weekends and
Casual Leave Balance, I started looking at exhausting my entire leave balance
and go away some place with no plans. From planning my leave based on project
deliverables, I started planning my project releases to adjust to my travel
plans. Instead of pursuing my career, I was looking at pursuing my passion even
at the stake of my career.
Most people don’t ask me ‘How are you?’ they have started asking
me ‘Where are you?’ or ‘Where Next?’
Yes, Travel can be very dangerous to your career, your
personal life, in fact for every aspect of your life. The boredom is no longer so tolerable. Status Quo and security look
despicable rather than desirable. Travel dares you to imagine and pushes you to
do things beyond most peoples’ wildest fantasy, it will make you go to places
most people had never heard of. It will also make you a much sought after story
teller in any gathering. Some may admire
you; some will tell you that you are crazy; some will tell you that you are hopeless.
Those who admire you may tell you that ‘you are very lucky. I wish I could do
that too’ and when you tell them luck has nothing to do with it and that they
can do it to, if they will really wish it that much. They will dismiss the
thought with a 100 different excuses of why such a thing was not possible for
them.
Some people including your family will call you crazy for
what you are doing and shower you with loads of well-meaning friendly advice to
teary emotional atyachar. But like a
rubber band extended beyond its elasticity, you know that things will never
ever be the same.
Traveling like a traveler is not for all; In fact it’s not
for most people. But if after all this statuary warning you are still
contemplating to become a traveler, then get ready for your life as usual to be
disrupted forever, for the new realities to emerge, for new perspectives to
bloom, and don’t be just contemplating it.
