Traveling broadens our world view.
Whether it be all over your own country, or all over the world,
travel allows people to see a life beyond the life that they
experience everyday. Travel allows people to gain a better
understanding of things they didn't know about before, make them
think new ideas. I am a firm believer that a little suffering builds
character. When you study or go abroad, you will encounter difficult
obstacles. It is unavoidable. Going from one culture to another, to
somewhere that is so fundamentally different from your norm, it is
bound to cause suffering, be it mental or physical. Traveling is not
for everyone, some completely fall in love with their destinations,
and others are completely disgusted with it. The whole point of
travel, of obstacles, is to give yourself the chance to try to figure
out yourself on a broader scale. Sometimes we need to be pushed into
difficult situations so we can grow. For me, so far my major time of
growth was when I first went to Japan.
When I first got to Japan, it was the
first time that I had been on my own, so far away from all my normal
support, that it really threw me out of my comfort zone. I was in a
country where the language was different, where I had to live
according to their laws, their customs (this is included paperwork to
stay in the country, written in Japanese). The first time I went to
the grocery store, a lady had asked m the simple question of what
country I was from in Japanese. She had to repeat her question five
times before I could understand what she was saying, and I had been
studying for two years already. When I went to the city hall and
filed my paperwork, got what needed to be done, done, I had such a
sense of accomplishment. This sense of accomplishment continued as I
payed for my bills and all other such things. You get a lot of these
completely opposite emotions, in a narrow window of time
I didn't just learn things about
myself. You learn things about people, about the universality of
some things, and sometimes you find something so very precious, such
as a soul-mate, a person that you know will be in your life until you
die, someone who can talk to, no matter how much time has passed and
there is still that connection, that spark. I met Ada, a person I
wouldn't have met otherwise, as we have completely different lives
and backgrounds. She is a bit tough and very girly and confident,
while I am a total wimp and have low self-esteem. Our thought
processes meshed surprisingly well. We were so similar in spirit, it
was like having a place to belong living
in a person. I never would have found that if I had not
gotten out of my shell, and decided to go see a little bit of the
world.
Traveling makes you grow as human
beings, gets you out of your shell. This is especially important for
people like me, who have a hard time reaching out to others. Truly,
I will never regret the experience.
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