“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

Image property of Hack: Dream life [Marian D.] ©2018. All rights reserved.

At the time of this writing, there are approximately 7.6 billion people on Earth. How many have you spoken to?

Our lives seem SO big. In all the years you have lived, whose story were you writing? Your own. Can you even remember it all? Do you even know yourself?

Only the fool can claim he fully knows himself. No offence. A greater fool is he who believes he knows the world.

Your life story, SO big and full, is a blip in the collective human history. If you learned something new each minute, you would not brush the surface of it all in your lifetime. Yet, here we are, in the 21st Century, more sure than ever that we know it all. Here we are making generalized statements about this person’s culture and that person’s faith. Here we are classifying people into “types.”

If I had a penny for every time someone said “she is the type of person who…”

Can you imagine how narrow our perspective is?

Today, I have marked travelling to 20 countries of this great world. I have lived in 8 of them. I have seen nothing. Every day is a surprise when you make the effort to look. Every person is a vessel of history.

Travel is uncomfortable, yes. It can be disarming. It can be incredibly expensive.

Ignorance comes at a greater cost.

Venture out and see the world. Do not make assumptions about your brothers and sisters. Do not settle. Do not accept your own excuses. Do not be afraid. And for the love of learning, whatever you do, do not avoid the “scary places.” Imagine what discoveries we miss out on by believing what we are told without question. The world is full of new “favourite places” for all of us to discover, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

This week I have seen families with infants and seniors on double canes venturing out to see the world. I’ve seen people in wheelchairs rolling uphill to see castles, and toddlers in suits twirling in circles at the Opera.

None of these people accepted their own excuses.

When you are not travelling, remember that you have the world at your fingertips today. Google Earth can show you the entire world; have you ever looked at anything beyond your own city, or even your house? Spotify (and similar apps) can grant you access to the music of the entire world. What’s on your playlist?

Travel does not have to mean venturing on long journeys anymore.

There are infinite avenues that allow you to gain new sight. Seek adventure. Explore. Learn. Challenge your beliefs.

Know that whatever you believe to be the truth is only a fragment of the truth.

And remember… we design our own luck!

M.