What I learned from traveling SOLO
Traveling alone might sound scary to some people, and it certainly is sometimes.
But once we overcome that fear, we are able to grasp who we truly are and learn how to spend time with ourselves in the world of distraction.
This is part two of What it’s like to travel SOLO. Compared to part one, I am digging deeper into each of my thoughts.
Learn how to spend time alone
We live in a world of distraction — constant bombardment of “new things”, that turns us into cyber zombies. As such, we are fed on fresh information and crave for more every day.
Social media is definitely one of the critical factors, by offering a new way to live as more connected. But in reality, we are trapped in this never-ending stream of distractions.
Looking deeper, most of the distractions are from the gadgets that keep us connected 24/7, like our phones, laptops, and even smartwatches.
To stop them hijacking our focus, we have to switch them off for good. Only then we will be able to take back control of our consciousness and live for ourselves only.
It’s time to pick up the skill that we should’ve mastered since a young age.
How to spend time with ourselves?
For all John Green fans out there, here’s the quote.
“It’s a metaphor, see? You put the thing that does the killing right between your teeth, but you never give it the power to kill you. A metaphor.” — John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
See the bigger picture
Our brains work like computers as it's fed and run by impulses. Everything happening inside and outside of our body can stimuli our brains, and every impulse takes up a certain amount of mental power to process.
Unfortunately, every decision-making signal coming into our brain will get prioritized purely based on its' degrees of urgency.
It would make sense if we were living in a hunter-gather age since we are choosing between getting eaten by a lion in front of us or which cave to go for dinner.
But it does no good to us in this modern era. Not only it limits how far we can see during our decision-making process, but also neglects what is truly important to us in a long run.
When we spend time alone during travel, we are actively cutting off those attention-hungry signals, telling our brain that its time to focus on the long term.
Hence, it enables us to see the bigger picture and discover what is truly important to us.
See through loneliness
“Loneliness isn’t feeling like you don’t really know anybody. It’s feeling like nobody could ever really know you.” — John Gorman
We often correlate loneliness with the number of friends we have. We think, the more friends we have, the less lonely we must be.
Which is nothing but a delusion, the numbers of friends on Facebook and the number of followers on Instagram, doesn’t mean anything besides giving us a hit of dopamine and a feeling of importunate.
How many of them are truly reliable, someone we can count on when things happened?
Loneliness comes from the inside, signalling us our natural desire of being understood, and the calling of confidantes.
Intimacy may be the ultimate solution.
Take on the unknown
There is only one way to reach somewhere we have never been, that is by trying something that we have never done before.
We may like it, we may hate it. But without trying, there’s no way to know.
Most of our regrets are from things that we have never tried.
The risks that we never have the courage to take on. The comfort zone that we believe it’s better to stay in. The vulnerabilities that we try our hardest to hide, but sacrifice the opportunity to yield a stronger relationship.
Unknown takes courage to explore, but that is the only way to live fully.
Know ourselves better. Treat others with empathy and respect. Make un-regrettable decisions. Discuss with an open mind.
I learned a lot from this trip to London, not just seeing things from a different angle, but also understanding myself more.
One quote that resonate with me throughout my journey.
“旅行，就是為了找到回家的路。” — Peter Su
Traveling is to find who we truly are.
This marks the end of the what it’s like series, thanks for everyone following along! 👍
Special thanks to Laura and Ashar proofreading this article.