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Sadia Khan
To travel is a passion with many of us. Seeing the world is
one reason; it also provides a welcome break from the usual
routine one performs day in and day out. Travel throws open
a whole new world of new experiences. Prophet Mohammad said:
“Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you
have travelled.”
When we go to new places, what we see, hear or do there,
puts us in touch with ourselves. In trying to understand
something strange and new, you begin to comprehend the
familiar and perhaps discover more about your own selves.
Curiously, often, when we come across something that is
unfamiliar, we come to realise that we are actually
experiencing something we’re familiar with!
When you are able to look beyond the visible, when you are
able to hear more than the spoken word, you wake up to the
fact that wherever we are on earth, we look up at the same
sky and beneath our feet is the very same earth. And we also
realise that as human beings, we are all part of one big
family.
Apparently insignificant things such as listening to people
all around you speak a language other than what you are
accustomed to hearing, pulls you out of the world you were
thus far encased in and introduces you to a broader canvas
of human life.
We tend to get high on patriotism, or a sense of belonging
and our identity as citizens of a particular country or
members of a community, but rarely do we realise that these
are but small parts of a much bigger whole. It is only when
you are uprooted, if only temporarily, from the place of
your belonging, that these words take on a new meaning. As
life is breathed into thoughts and emotions - which were
formerly vague and unformed - much is thrust forth from the
unconscious to the conscious.
Best of all, travel cuts you down to size. In the course of
all the difficulties and problems that crop up from time to
time, travel and exploration bring you face-to-face with
human limitations and vulnerabilities. Your accomplishments
and failures in the new vastness you are experiencing, now
appear so small and insignificant. Your false sense of pride
and inflated sense of self-worth comes crashing down.
Several practical lessons are learnt in the course of your
travels. A traveller, when faced with problems, would
naturally not have the time to attend to all of them. He
will, therefore, prioritise. For some he seeks solutions,
and some others he chooses to ignore.In whatever he does, it
is his destination which has his complete attention, for
that is the point that he knows he must reach, somehow. This
we need to practise in our daily life as well. Whatever life
presents us with, we must doggedly keep moving on towards
the goal we have set for ourselves, lest we become entangled
in the trivia of life and the more important issues remain
unaddressed.
The experienced traveller knows that to get the best out of
the journey, he has to travel light as that reduces
unnecessary hassles. Look at it from another angle, and this
is true of life, too! As we live the few years we are
blessed with, let us not carry with ourselves the utterly
useless and heavy baggage (burden) of negativity, despair
and worry. Shrug it off! Go on, pick up that rucksack and
get going! Bon voyage. |
