Nomad's Guide to Self-Discovery: Why Every Young Person Needs to Travel
From chameleon to character: the role our environment plays on personal growth.
note: i am trying something a little new, voiceovers. ↑ right here you can click and listen to me speak this article.
There are some mistakes and I left them in there for the sake of documenting as I improve reading aloud and articulating.
Read along, enjoy, and let me know if you like this feature!
I was a shape-shifter.
An only child of a single mother.
From a young age, I have always been the kind of guy to be highly personable and social, because I had to be.
It's not like there were many people around to chat with. I always had to find my group and mix in somehow.
But that caused me to never figure out who I was.
I moved from the West Coast in California, USA, to Eastern South Dakota. Over 2000 miles away. This was during summer break, between the 5th and 6th grades.
From city life to farm town.
The culture shock was immense.
I was a Cali kid who wore skinny jeans and "talked funny" to these farmers, and I bet I did.
But that made them take interest in me and I loved it. I was cool for being weird. This lasted about one semester of school, about 4 months. In their eyes, my novelty wore off, and instead of being cool-weird I became just weird.
And then I began "shapeshifting" and mending into my environment (s/o @yaboikurious). Less skinny jeans, more real jeans and sweatpants that didn't fit quite right.
I was descending into people-pleasing and the subsequent status game that comes from it.
I lived like that for the next 3 years until somewhere in high school I figured out I didn't need to be someone I wasn't. I didn't need to shape-shift to be like-able.
This is a long-winded story on how our environment affects us and how we adapt to it.
No one is immune to this phenomenon, we all do it. We all want to be a part of the tribe. It is innately human, a survival instinct.
But, it often doesn't do us much of a service when we are attempting to find ourselves.
We need to extract ourselves from our environment and figure out who we actually are.
I have found this process to be most easily done by leaving where ever I am at.
By uprooting myself, I am removing all consistently reinforced environmental scaffolding. In my mind, this scaffolding makes up how I view myself, and how I view the world, and thus, my actions.
Removing the scaffolding lets whatever wasn't actually me, crumble. And what's left is authentic, true to self, ME.
This is a HUGE reason of why traveling is NECESSARY for young people.
The sooner you can get out of world (your environment), the better off you will be.
When on your journey, you will find parts of you that you never realized existed. And ones that never had any real sticking power outside your environment.
One thing that has stuck out to me while I have been in Spain is how much modesty is valued amongst Spaniards.
It's impressive, these people dress up in full clothing, year round. Puffer jackets when it's 60ºF, and long sleeve linen shirts when its 95ºF.
I get funny looks from locals like I am ZOO ANIMAL while I am running in a tank top. Total rubbernecking.
And I gotta say, its doing wonders for my confidence. I am nearly desensitized to someone giving me the odd look at this point.
While it is partially because of my extremely limited wardrobe (my backpack can only fit so much), it's as much of a part of me to not care anymore.
I used to go chameleon and blend in.
At the beginning of my time in Spain, it rubbed off on me. I didn't want to go outside without a long jacket or something to cover up. But it didn't stick. The scaffolding wasn't strong enough to hold that temporary character trait.
The next location I go will affect me differently and challenge me in ways that I can't expect. And that is the beauty of it.
I will constantly be figuring out a little bit more about me, and who I am. Bit by bit.
This is the power of traveling and finding yourself. Reaching more understanding of who we are, which something always worth pursuing.
As always...
KEEP GOING
B.S.
p.s - if you want to increase your brands' presence online or just need a website for you or your brand, let's chat here
p.p.s - love the KEEP GOING Newsletter? drop a testimonial here. if you want to share this newsletter with your friends - send them this link: