With the health quarantine imposed by the covid-19 epidemic, we find ourselves, like everyone else, carrying out a series of activities in our homes, many of which are of an internal nature.
Some of these activities include inner looks we are doing to manage emotions and fill our time with meaningful activities.
One of the most important is a work of reflection and evaluation of what has been our life in these years of traveling the world.
But more than just remembering the different places where we have been, this post will be about the lasting and determining impact on our lives that this globetrotting life has produced.
Are you with us?
A look at the essentials of life
We have always been people who value experiences more than material possessions. But after we started our life journey through going around the world really this idea has crystallized in an empirical way.
It’s one thing to have intellectual knowledge. It is quite another to live it.
An experience significantly and in the long term – sometimes permanently – alters your being, your personality. A material possession at best fulfills a passing desire. You feel momentary relief at satisfying that desire but that’s a short-lived thing. Once this euphoria passes, you return to its original state.
But when you are affected by experiences – in our case, wonderful experiences and some not so good experiences – that remains in your being and will make you grow as a person.
Your ego and giving yourself too much importance reduce
One of the things we’ve noticed is that our ego has diminished. After analyzing this fact, we believe that it is because people who have a very limited horizon tend to think that they and their immediate environment or even their country are the navel of the world.
When you travel and meet so many people, so many cultures, you realize that you are only a very small part of that whole great mosaic what our planet is.
When you see things from that perspective, far from feeling insignificant rather you feel like part of something much bigger, it elevates you as a human being and at the same time makes you more humble, more grateful.
It has made us aware that we are all interconnected
We are all in the same boat: what happens here affects those who are elsewhere and what happens elsewhere affects me as well. That realization, that realization of that interconnection between all human beings that as the poet John Donne said “no man is an island“, has its full confirmation in the situation we are living.
Something that started as far away as China has affected the whole world and this is something that makes us think, this interconnectedness of all life on the planet is one of the most important things we need to reflect on. We are part of this tapestry and it is impossible to break one fiber without many others being unleashed.
It has made us stronger
We have had to face situations abroad, in unfamiliar environments where we did not even speak the language and we have passed those tests.
That has given us immense confidence in our possibilities, in our potential, has made us safer people, more comfortable with ourselves and aware of our inner power.
Through the experiences in the trips we have realized something very important, and that is that we will never know what we are able to achieve until we try.
It drives us to seek our own spiritual path
One of the most significant things in any culture is precisely the issue of religion. We have met and had the opportunity to approach various religions. We’ve seen a lot of common ground in them and we’ve seen what faith is. That has had a profound impact on us.
When we come into contact with such a variety of beliefs it becomes difficult for the leader of a sect or cult or institutionalized religion to come and want to sell us weird ideas, pretending that he is the sole owner of the truth and pretending to be a spiritual leader whom we must follow.
We have realized in our journey through the world that there are precisely many paths and that the human being must always seek the answers within himself, because the Inner Being of each one tells you what is the best way for you at that moment and not let yourself be carried away or wait for the approval of the people around you.
More tolerance
Coming into contact with such a diversity of idiosyncrasies, beliefs and cultures has made us much more tolerant.
We find these pretensions by some people to think that their beliefs, their religion, their ideology are above others, really pointless.
We think it’s a very small, insignificant view of what the great tapestry of life is. When you travel you realize that all worldviews are different approximations of the same reality.
There is no one more important than another. They are simply different paths and each person, by law of vibration, finds his level according to the state of evolution in which he is.
We have learned to discern the essentials
Many people live as asleep. That dream is born of putting the temporal, the irrelevant first before the essential and truly important.
For an obvious matter of luggage weight we have had to take on our trips only what is really important. As a metaphor, that same idea evolved over time and we have applied it to our own lives.
Let go of what is superfluous superficial and stick to what is essential and transcendent. Such has been our way of living life since we have started traveling.
We’ve learned to stop and breathe
Traveling has allowed us to see how from “a certain distance” we live a life at full speed, as if always wanting to get quickly to a place that we do not even know what it is.
We have acquired a perspective from which we can sit and watch as life goes on and that many things that have overwhelmed us have passed without major significance. And that all that anguish that we might have felt turned out to be something useless and unnecessary because all temporary things by their very nature are ephemeral, they happen.
Desire to connect with others
Through our travels, we develop a tendency to communicate and connect with other people.
When you travel, do it alone or group trips, there will always be that need to, for example, ask for information and indications where you are.
Then for the simple fact, for the pleasure that is experienced connecting with people who have lived realities very different from yours, even if you are a shy person, you develop social qualities and an empathy that you would not believe you had.
Connecting with human beings in distant places, even those who don’t speak our languages, is definitely a rewarding experience. Language is almost never a barrier when people really want to communicate.
What reflections has this quarantine left you?
Let us know your comment !
