Ever asked yourself, why are we doing what we are doing today. I am sure at some point in time, each of us has. “What is life?”
“What is its motive?”
All these are short questions with a tremendous impact on our thought process, that intrigues us about the endless possibilities of life and our sheer insignificance in all this hustle. Overwhelmed by this? Well, to be honest, it is elementary to get overwhelmed by the scale of the world around us. But through all these layers of responsibilities, aims, goals and chaos, shines a sharp and bright light of travel.

Travel. It sure carries a lot of meanings for a six-letter word. For some, it might a gruesome task of simply displacing from one place to another, whereas for some, it feels like the most joyous and meaningful thing to do. As anyone who reads this can guess, I fall in the latter extreme of the spectrum. For me, travel is like the door to the utopia of exploration and experience A bit too much? I thought so.

So to speak simply, travel is something that beyond its disposition, gives us memories to cherish forever. It might be how you managed to see through an extremely harsh challenge or even an effortless family vacation where you had a gala of a time. All these, amount to the most treasured thing in the world, even beyond knowledge, experience. These experiences are the foundations of one’s eventual personality. And to put in a superhero’s terms-
“IT DEFINES WHO YOU ARE!”
After all, each of us does carry the will to be a superhero. Don’t you remember? How you manage to keep yourself going even after a million problems and obstacles.
“This is an ordinary life”, you say.
I say it is the art of Travelling through Life. And anyone who has mastered this art, YUP, I am pointing towards you, is a superhero for me.
A different, slightly silly, yet powerful approach to the Journey of Life.

Now let’s get to the conventional travel, the real one. Exploring new places in a planned fashion, or going to familiar places in an unpredictable manner, all this comes under the shadow of travel. As you might have guessed, I am an inquisitive person, so here’s another one-Why do we travel?
To explore? For work?
For show-off on social media?
In the quest of finding happiness?
These are just some possible reasons. Every individual has his own reason to travel.

All of us do the same thing, travel, but for different reasons. And that is the most special thing about it. Travel allows you to find out who you are, to understand oneself in a way he or she never envisioned. The way you handle a problem during travelling, explains the way you think and determines your preferences.
For example, let me narrate a small but adventurous incident. A couple of years ago, I was on a road trip across the majestic Lahaul and Spiti valley. Famous for its breathtaking landscape and notoriously terrible roads, I can’t say what happened was completely unexpected.

So it’s 4 PM and the melted snow had started to gush its way down, turning the water crossings into violent streams, capable of flipping an SUV, upside down. And we, a family of 13, in two cars were stuck in the middle of nowhere and decided to spend the night in the car itself. Also, there was another group, which somehow, made its way through the turbulent flow of ice-cold water.
It was not the most comfortable night, but, under the night sky of Lahaul, in the middle of a broken-down road, 4000 m above the sea level, it was a sight to behold.

This incident gives us the perfect example of how different decisions lead to different, amazing experiences. As the family, who made their way through, slept in the comfort of a bed, without any worry. Whereas we, of course with our share of trouble, experienced something that for me was Godlike.

I might sound overwhelmed, but this is what makes us human beings, the glorious differences, as even the sheep are well versed in following a single trailed path. It is our ability to choose paths and even make a new one that shapes us to be an individual and not simply a part of the herd. And on a serious note, the practice of exploring new places and travelling once in a while is something that is genuinely helpful in maintaining stable mental health.

Sometimes life gets tough. Tough beyond our means to fix immediately, this is when you need a break. A break from work. A break from school. And a break from a fixed routine.
Your mind asks you to break the monotony, so that it may have the roam to think freely, without any major concerns troubling it, so that it may find a way back to the daily routine life and gather the courage to go through anything that comes his way.

This all happens when you travel, when you come face to face with each unpredictable problem life can throw at you.

Content Credits: Amardeep Jain