So what is it about traveling?
Posted on October 24, 2013 | posted by:
I am passionate about traveling and if you were to ask me what I would like to do in life, I would respond that I would love to have a life that enables me to move from one country to another. Recently I have been thinking what is it about traveling that excites me coming to the conclusion that it is the combination of the people I get to meet, the new foods that I get to try, the different landscapes that I get to see, or possibly it is simply the experience of feeling so curious of what surrounds me, almost like being a child again.
Being in the TransD program has made me realize that without knowing what I really enjoy about traveling, is the experience of constantly learning, recognizing and admitting to myself that I don´t know many things; but that it is all right, indeed life is a learning process. It´s okay to feel lost, to be confused and even uncomfortable but most importantly as it’s pointed out in Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadow “not bluff and not freeze, but to learn”. Traveling is a way of learning through experience, experimenting, a hands on experience to learn from cultures.
Immersing yourself in different cultures can shape the way you view the world. In every country, culture and person there is a world to know which can open new possibilities and ways of thinking. To learn, as Meadows mentions, we need to take small steps, constantly be monitoring and willing to change our course as we find more about where it’s leading. We need to be more flexible, open minded but above all humble and acknowledge that our way of doing things is not necessarily the right way of doing them. This becomes very clear through traveling, once you realize that there are so many cultures that do things so differently from one another. We must celebrate this diversity and find ways in which we can connect information from one culture to another to have a better understating of society and people.
“System thinking has taught me to trust my intuition more and my figuring out rationality less, to lean on both as much as I can, but still be prepared for surprises.” – Donella Meadows
I view traveling as taking risks and taking a step towards a learning experience. It’s losing your fears and going far beyond your comfort zone into a place where you open yourself to new ways of learning. It enables you to listen, see and interact with new cultures and ways of doing things. If you let yourself become humble you might learn way more about yourself and your own culture by understanding how others and you do everyday activities.
As Meadows goes on to say – “No part of the human race is separate either from other human beings or from the global ecosystem”
Getting lost, not knowing the language, the food, the transportation system are all things that you might come across while traveling. This gives you the opportunity to trust more on your instinct, and rely on others. Once we acknowledge that a way to learn about a country and its culture is best understood through its people, you open yourself to learn and trust others far more than what you might be used to. We have to admit that there are new contexts to be learned. We have to let go of preconceived ways of seeing the world so we can immerse ourselves in new cultures, but above all take advantage of all that we can learn. The beauty of getting to know other cultures is to understand how alike we are yet how different, how much we depend on one another without knowing it and as Meadow says “analyze what can and must be done by the human spirit”.