I had just finished an internship after graduating college when I got my first impulse to just go.
While friends were securing jobs and cozying into their 9 to 5’s, I had a revelation that life was, from now on, entirely what I wanted to do with it.
I knew I needed to get to know myself on a deeper level before I could walk into an interview and honestly answer those questions about myself. I knew I craved richer life experiences, the kind that are better had at 22 than 32. I knew I needed to experience life independently, on my own terms. I knew the world was out there, waiting for me. And I knew the things I questioned about the world and myself, I would find answers on the road. I knew, more than anything else, I needed to travel.
And so, one day, I just did. Here are a few words that sparked my mind shift to inhale deep, set intentions, make some plans and then go.
When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.
– D.H. Lawrence
You can do things in your early 20’s that you can’t do as well before or after, like plunge deeply into projects on a whim and travel super cheaply with no sense of a deadline. For unambitious people, this sort of thing is the dreaded “failure to launch,” but for the ambitious ones it can be an incomparably valuable sort of exploration. If you start a startup at 20 and you’re sufficiently successful, you’ll never get to do it.
– Paul Graham
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.
– Mary Oliver
To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.
– Freya Stark
They should tell you when your born: Have a suitcase heart, be ready to travel.
– Gabrielle Zevin
So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.
– Mary Oliver
If your twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.
– Anthony Bourdain
