Complete and Creative

Why Traveling Makes You A Better Person

Please excuse the snobby title of this post, but it is something that I honestly believe (after all, if I didn’t, there wouldn’t be a purpose to this blog).

I’m someone who doesn’t believe in black and white. As far as I’m concerned, the world is painted in shades of gray (and lots of other colors too, I suppose). To me, there really is no such thing as better. Everything is relative.

With this one exception.

Just thought this was a pretty inspirational photo. Taken in Kyoto during the fall of 2005. Blossoming red leaves in the midst of greenery.

I’m not saying people who don’t travel are bad people, just that they’d be better people if they did travel. This argument is based on the belief that (now, come on, this “belief” is something of a reality when you stop and think about it) we are all connected. I’m not spiritual or religious, nor am I an environmental activist, but I don’t need a degree in ecological sciences to know that anything anyone does eventually affects everyone else. I know I’m a human being living on earth. If you’re reading this (and you’re not a dog with super powers), then you and I can most likely both fit in that category. Traveling is the best way to get to know our shared space a little better.

Like it or not, we all need to share this small planet of ours. In a time when all people (with an Internet connection) can upload videos of themselves on YouTube and propagate their microcelebrity on MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, and Xanga, it is too easy to think “me, me, me” all the time. The irony is that these technologies were created to connect people, and those who use them profusely do so because they crave a connection with other people. But the connection we get is self-centered (I’d be the first one to admit I’m usually only interested in Facebook photos of me and my friends). When you travel, you realize you’re not the center of the universe; you’re just a part of it.

Disney only got it half right. It is a small world—but only some of the time. We realize it’s a small world when we see the connections we didn’t see before. Oh, this friend of mine knows that friend of mine? Oh, this country and that country have that kind of history with each other? Oh, there are people of that ethnicity living in that part of the world? All the other time, most of us just get lost in the vastness of our world. How often do we say, “This makes no sense.” It makes no sense to us because we don’t understand it.

I suppose you can define a “better” person as someone who’s more willing and more capable of contributing to others than someone else is. You can’t contribute to others if you don’t understand them. You can’t understand them unless you interact with them. You can’t really interact (as in, not by just reading a book) with others (as in the others who live in other parts of the world) unless you travel.

Plus, traveling is just plain fun. You learn quite a bit while you’re at it too.