I'm getting tired

I was writing in my personal journal the other day about traveling, trying to explain to myself the reasons why traveling is important to personal development. The last thing I wanted to do was sound like a motivational speaker so I wrote the entry as if it was an interview. I've decided to share a small portion of why I feel like moving away from what you are comfortable with (your home) for even just a short time to relocate somewhere unfamiliar, removing you from your comfort zone, is beneficial to the foundation of life.


The mundane monotonous patterns we find ourselves living in are necessary to keep our lives going. Working, exercising, eating, and sleeping are often times patterned activities we do on a daily basis without even thinking of straying from. The pattern is at home, the home in which you are currently living and we're locked into this march towards some great goal, striving to complete the tasks we've set forth for ourselves. It's not until we divert our efforts, wandering from our home, that we can ever experience new and unique things and learn upon them, therefor increasing personal learned experience in decision making and social development.

Why are older people wise? Why can an older carpenter never having never taken a college course in woodworking give advice to a professor on cabinetry? The decisions we make and the resulting experience we gain, both positive and negative, will influence how we will continue to make decisions in the future; it's these decisions which shape our experiences, in-turn shaping our personal development. Removing yourself from what you are comfortable with and breaking out of the patterns of every day life forces you to make decisions you may not be used to back home - it's all about the decisions. Experience is a result of having to make a decision. Factors affecting decision making while traveling include, but are not restricted to:
- People
- Money
- Time
- Family
- Language
- Safety

Which of these is applicable to life back home?

These are the kinds of things I think about while traveling. The view out the bus window as the sun sinks between two camel humped mountains on the boarder between central Thailand and Isaan is remarkable, glowing bright but dulled enough by the hazy clouds that concentrate in the distance. Does seeing the sun set between the mountains mean I've experienced more? Is traveling about bragging about the number of places you been and things you've seen? Should I fill my blog with colorful explanations of my surroundings because that's my "experience?" However beautiful, my experience isn't shaped by a pretty scene, but rather by the reason I can see the sun setting in the first place: I had to make a last minute decision to travel west rather than to go home towards the east, thereby chasing the sun. I'm able to watch the sun set because I wasn't ready to go back home. I made a decision and my experience is only enriched by the sunset. A romantic may believe the two were meant for each other (my decision and the sunset) but I'm skeptical. To me, it's the decision which unveils the experience.

I'm back in my village now, preparing for a hearty Songkran. Traveling is tiring and it's nice to be back even if my routine will feel like a pattern. Like I said near the beginning of this rant, the pattern is necessary to keep our lives going. It will feel good to recharge the batteries and prepare for my next tour.

"We'll get somewhere, sometime."