Travel may make us able to choose the world we want to see.

Travel makes us not only able to understand others better, but it also opens our horizons and gives us courage. 

The way we choose to see the world creates the world we see. – Barry Neil Kaufman

See what our friend Ryan Biddulph tells us about his experiences.

Thank you, Ryan

Do You Want to Be Able to Understand Anybody?

I have a supportive blogging buddy who has helped me generously for well over 8 years if not longer.

I also get a kick out of the fact that she has told me for the past 8 years again and again how she simply cannot understand why anybody would travel and how much she loves her home.

If she is reading this, I will say with a smile that one reason why I travel is because traveling is an easy way to understand other people, their perspective, and their thinking process LOL!

Truthfully, I had the same exact mindset as her 10 years ago before I began traveling. I simply could not understand why people would travel because I seemed quite happy with being a homebody. But once I began traveling, I quickly understood that the sole reason why I could not understand the traveler’s itch or any other mindset foreign to me was because I did not explore my mind….and the world.

I know she is incredibly happy in her home state. We all have a different journey for this short, fascinating human experience. But anytime you cannot understand someone else’s thinking, feelings, or behavior, the lack of understanding is in your mind and its perceived limits, not in the thinking, feeling, or behavior of anyone else.

As a rule, I can understand almost anybody but only because I:

• Search deeper into my mind
• Search deeper into the world

Do search your mind. And search your world. Understand anyone. Respect their perspective. Appreciate their choices. Learn from someone who has greater experience than you in areas you do not or did not understand.

See the world from anyone’s perspective. 

I understand travelers. And I understand homebodies. I understand digital nomads. Also, I understand people from all over the world. I understand people from my hometown in NJ. Why? I dig deeper into my mind and the world; I can see the world from almost anyone’s perspective. 

My blogging buddy and other folks who do not understand why I travel would instantly, immediately, and dramatically understand why I travel the split second they opened their mind to see things from my perspective. Far from me stating “opening their mind” being pejorative or combative, I literally mean taking a deep breath, relaxing the mind, and being 100% open to listening, learning, and slowly but surely developing an appreciation for a different perspective. That’s it. That’s understanding. Journey into your mind. Journey into the world.

I recall visiting my aunt in North Carolina once. I listened to a kid who lived in a semi-rural area proclaim how the U.S. was the greatest country in the world. But he admittedly never traveled outside of a small area of North Carolina and formulated that strong opinion based on the viewpoints of roughly 10,000 people who looked like him, though like him, and lived around him. But how can you know the U.S. is number 1 if you understand only 10K folks who think like you?

Belief systems

What would happen if 10, 50, or 10,000 of the 7 billion humans on planet earth offered different belief systems? Would you rethink your opinion? Would you at least understand and appreciate their perspectives? Or would you remain closed-minded, fixed in your beliefs, and proclaim a complete lack of understanding for the massive world and billions of human beings well outside of your small hometown and their predominant belief systems?

Or, if you cannot afford to travel or have no desire to travel, how about traveling deeper into your mind to explore your belief system? Delve into what you resist mentally. Get to know people who seem to live a life you cannot understand better. I have zero desire to resist traveling and live in my hometown, but I utterly and completely understand my blogging buddy 100%. And I get it. I understand the love of being a homebody only because I explored my mind for its bias, my formerly fixed perspectives, and I genuinely see life from virtually everyone’s perspective not because I desire each of these lifestyles or deeply value each belief system but because I appreciate and understand different ways of thinking, feeling and living.

Hit the road!

Travel in your mind and/or around the globe. 

Understand anyone you meet.

About the Author

Ryan Biddulph inspires you with smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.

See also How Traveling the World Changes Your Life

and Who Gave You Your Belief System?

My first Journey

I remember my first travel alone. I was seven and traveled by train from Heidelberg to a town in Bavaria called Holzkirchen. One of my Grandmothers lived there. My mother gave me a paper with my home address, the destination address, and the route I took. In the big city of Munich, I had to change the train, the Train conductor guided me and I arrived on time at my destination. My Grandma waited for me. I learned to know some interesting people and heard their stories, all of them had to flee from the north to south Germany during the war. Authentic Stories I would never have heard otherwise if my mother would have not had the courage to send me on my first journey

Since then, I have always loved traveling and see life in other places, the world is my home. And I always encouraged my young friends to travel, experience life, and learn to understand and accept people and cultures. Also because as Mark Twain said:

See also Travel And Explore See In A New Way What Life Is.