Luxagraf

{a travelogue}

How to Get Off Your Butt and Travel the World

How do you make the leap from cubicle daydreams to life on to the road?

There are plenty of guides on the practicalities of traveling the world — like planning an itinerary, booking cheap flights or living in hostels — but sometimes the harder questions go unanswered — how do you find the courage to travel?

Endless road by TheFriendlyFiend, FlickrEven for those that want nothing more than to escape a life of monotony, even for those that hate their jobs, even for those that feel like they have no life and desperately need some excitement, it still isn’t easy to actually get on a plane and go.

I know. I’ve been there. I decided to travel to world when I was 24. I left to travel the world when I was 29.

For five years I found excuses to postpone my dreams, not consciously of course, but there was always some excuse to stay. Only years later, once I’d made it all the way to India, did I realize what held me back — fear born of inertia.

Inertia is a powerful thing — both imprisoning and liberating at the same time. The negative aspect is the inertia that imbues our lives in the form of habit. We get up, we go to work, we come home, and the same thing happens the next day.

The first law of thermodynamics says, more or less, that bodies in crappy ruts tend to remain in crappy ruts.

The good news is that bodies on the road tend to remain on the road.

The question is: how do we make inertia work for us rather than against us?

The answer is that it’s going to take some energy. You have to make the change happen. You must decide to save yourself.

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