Why you should not Travel?

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.

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.