We all hear that traveling broadens the mind, but how exactly? I think, it’s digging out precious treasures that have been deeply hidden for years.
My dear treasure hunters, if you want to know what you can discover on a journey, read on …
The treasure of perseverance
You discover it when you have a goal, but the road to it is long and hard. You walk like on a desert without water. This is not necessarily a desert, but many airports, problems, delays, disappointments, unpleasant people, dangers situations. You think you can’t go any further, many are long gone, but you keep going on.
The treasure of patience
Waiting is very difficult and at some point, when you realize that you have no control over certain things, you let go and start waiting with a different, positive attitude. You don’t give up, just trust the proces.
The treasure of faith and trust
You are at the end of the world, on your own, so you start to believe in yourself, your ability to cope with any situation, and trust the universe to bring what is best for you. What more can you do? Sit and cry? Maybe for a moment, but then you have to get up on your feet and move forward.
The treasure of intuition
In some situations, when everything fails, navigation does not work, you do not have a map and you are at a crossroads, you have no idea whether to go right or left, so you rely on intuition. You have no way to find it out. Sometimes you feel inside the inner voice warning you not to go somewhere, or not to trust someone. Every time I didn’t listen to my intuition, I regretted it. Each of us has this so-called sixth sense, but you practice it intensively while traveling.
The treasure of gratitude
You start to notice small, normal things that bring a lot of joy and make the day extraordinary. You become a connoisseur of sunsets, enjoy drinking tea in the middle of beautiful nature, take photos of flowers and feel gratitude. You appreciate what you have and what is given to you, e.g. clean air – prana. It becomes a habit, and the quantity of these things increases. Gratitude is the key to happiness.
*Make a gratitude list for 21 days and see what happens. After 21 times you will start to have a habit of gratitude, and this is probably still the most effective way to change your life. Just focus on small, good aspects.
The treasure of listening
Have you noticed that most people are listening impatiently just to say something? Have you ever shared something important, personal for you, and the response was automatic “copy – paste”, or a strange advice that would be good for this person, but not for you, or no response at all, or worse, a quick change of topic? When traveling, you are curious about other people and you want to listen, you want to learn stories.
“Listen. The healing process in people begins when they feel heard” Cheryl Richardson.
You also start listening to flora and fauna. In the snowy mountains you have to listen to nature to stay safe. You go out to sea and listen what the sea is telling.
“The earth has music for those who can listen” Shakespeare (or George Santayana or Oliver Wendall Holmes).
The treasure of respect
You learn that your body is your temple, without it you cannot do anything. You gain respect for the feet that have walked you thousands of kilometers, the eyes for showing you so many wonderful sunrises. Therefore you don’t throw rubbish into your body.
You are starting to truly respect Mother Earth and the amazing animals you may have met. You respect other people, objects, hotel rooms, rented cars.
The treasure of distance
Thanks to traveling and various experiences, you gain distance to everything, you stop taking everything personal. You always learn to look at situation from a higher perspective and get a bigger picture. You stop exaggerating and dramatizing over little things that may once seemed important.
The treasure of extraordinary
You meet people all over the world and many of them are really interesting, they follow their path, achieve amazing goals (not necessarily big or popular yet meaningful). You are motivated that these people are like you, but at the same time living the extraordinary life and you no longer want be mediocre (sad and complaining). You know that everything is possible, you work on yourself, on your passions and lifestyle. It is convenient to make bad choices, but you reach for what is good for you and the world.
The treasure of learning
I think traveling is the most effective way of learning about the world. In a closed room even the most interesting knowledge may seems boring, school becomes a heavy duty. When we step out into the world, where everything is more colorful, we become eager to learn and absorb knowledge like a sponge.
The treasure of courage
The journey begins with the courage to step into the unknown. Then you dare to try new flavors, do new activities, talk to new people. Maybe you are extremely afraid of something, but you gather courage, do it, and then feel satisfaction.
The treasure of getting to know yourself
You experience yourself in different circumstances and get to know yourself, you notice more what you like and dislike, what style of traveling suits you, also you develop stronger boundaries. This increases self-esteem, self-respect and self-love because, because you cannot love yourself if you are trying to be someone else. It is that simple.
The treasure of practice
The world we live in is oriented on quick fix, and immediate effect. Traveling gives us the opportunity to practice different skills, face challenges and we are getting better each time. In retrospect, we see that we have repeated something a thousand times, which is why we became experts in this field. It is a skill that nothing can take away or diminish it. We are confident and calm because we know well how much effort we have put into it.
The treasure of focus
You notice that everything is a matter of perspective and you focus on what you want to strengthen in your life. You only pay attention to your priorities and what you value (unlike the rest who focuses on what they do not like, and comment on negative posts, so the number of views sky rocket and become viral).
The treasure of redefining success and happiness
We are starting to create our own definition of success and happiness, because what we have learned (the way we are raised) is not necessarily the best for us. Some of us realise that f.eks. interaction with a kangaroo and playing with it, is more valuable than buying a new, popular thing.
Happiness is not a state of eternal, undisturbed joy because it is unnatural, but peace, harmony and knowledge of how to deal with problems, knowledge of yourself.
The treasure of walking your own path
If we get to know each other, we can see how special we are. There is no other person like us on this planet. So we can’t all follow the same path. We create our own “bucket list”, we travel and live on our own terms.
The treasure of wealth
You recognize this tremendous wealth of Earth and its diversity. You look at the sky or at nature and you feel rich because you are part of it.
The treasure of transformation
First you change your small world, you see how much you can do in it, so you want to have a larger impact. You see how beautiful the Earth is with your own eyes, how much needs to be improved and you are looking for a way to do it, you work on it instead of complaining. You discover that the art is not to focus on what we have in front our eyes, but on the vision of the world we would like to have in front our eyes. You clean the beaches, segregate garbage, limit plastic, plant trees, do what you can. This is not about great deeds, but little acts every day.
The treasure of calling
You discover your life purpose and do what you have to do without overly worrying about criticism and difficulties. At some point in my life I began to be tired of rejections, so I started doing things the “self-proclaimed method” as I put it 🙂 and everything began to fall into place. Not always, but often travels give us a sense of mission, which is our vocation (or part of it).
When you come back from a journey, nothing is the same.
Malvina Dunder 
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