Travelling – To Find Yourself

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Well, the time has come. On Sunday, I fly to Namibia for two weeks to participate on a guided tour. The tour will take me through Namibia and end in Cape Town. I will stay there for two weeks and in South Africa for a total of three months. I would like to highlight what motivation I see in travelling and why I think it is absolutely crucial. To complete the blog, I highlight why I quit my job and left my “safe and sound” world.

Well, why travelling? There are hundreds of answers to this question and they are as diverse as travelling itself. My answer is rather simple: travel for the reason to find yourself (and maybe even more). Let me explain this a bit more: when you are born, you are born into a certain culture. This culture forms your beliefs, ethics etc. – basically it defines who you are. I don’t say this culture is bad nor wrong. Every culture is different and beautiful in its own way. But as your first years are psychologically the most engraving ones, most people stop questioning life after they were born into this very specific belief system. And by going to places which express a different culture, you automatically start to question again. You experience this new culture in each and every moment. Eating, driving, dressing, sleeping, praying. You automatically start to ask yourself how your belief system fits into that. Often what you were told from a young age doesn’t work for you and you only start to realise this by experiencing it the other way around. Because at the end, the ultimate question is to ask who are you? Most people can’t answer this question and to be honest, neither can I. This is why travelling is so important. Travelling is a form of learning. I hope you understood what I tried to bring across. Please be so kind and leave a comment telling me what your perspective is on the topic. I would love to hear how you see travelling.

I think I already touched base on the question why I quit my job. But let me just put it into context. I could never focus properly in school and after my 20s and I started to see the same issue while working. I knew why. It was simply because I could not concentrate on what I needed to as I was always asking myself: What defines me? What are ethics to me? What religion or spiritually I feel connected to? Basically I was searching for an answer to who I am. And the more I tried to push the question back, the more it came back. It haunted me. Luckily enough I was already planning to quit my job in order to become self-employed. It therefore worked out perfectly at the end. And as a photographer who doesn’t want to visit another school, I think it is best to learn everything by yourself. And my favourite way to learn is by practicing as much as I can. So what better way to do this than travelling.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I actually booked a flight back to Rome from Johannesburg by end of April. Reason being that the flight was very cheap and as I am planning to travel Europe afterwards, I just seemed like a good move. What I do after summer, meaning around August, is still open. We will see what the future holds.

 

In the meantime, be blessed and protected wherever your travels may take you.

 

Love,

Natty

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