Jonathan Jiang

Whenever I travel, I am always changed in some way.  When I walk onto a plane bound for another country or unfamiliar location, it’s like walking into a transformation room.  I board, take a seat, read a book, watch a movie, have a meal, and take a nap.  When I get off the plane, I am in a different city, country, or continent.  Physically, I am unchanged, except for being a little fatigued at sitting in the same position for hours.  Mentally, however, I am different.  For one thing, as I step off the plane and exit the airport, I am in a completely new environment.  Everything around me has changed, and as such, I immediately begin to adapt.  The great thing is that I am free to change without the burden of the past or where I have come from.  Even on the plane, I begin to feel that all the stresses of life, such as work, bills, responsibility, are being left behind because they have no influence when I arrive at my destination.  My mind can let go of extraneous things and retain only those skills and lessons that may serve me in my new environment.  In a new city, it’s ok to make mistakes and ask questions because I have a great excuse, “I’m new here”.  Exploring a new place for the first time with unfiltered eyes and trying things out without the pain of knowing what might hurt me or land me in a difficult situation is the clean oil that allows my mind to change, without the junk of old unchanged oil.

I’m reminded of a lesson given to motorcycle instructors about how they should set the tone and environment for new students.  The atmosphere during a riding course should be high in challenge, low in threat.  That means that the instructors need to set an environment where students are free to make mistakes and aren’t feeling threatened by failure and having expectations set on them.  I’ve helped teach and have been part of motorcycle classes and what I’ve observed is that the students who do the worst are those to whom the teachers give extra attention.  The pattern goes something like this: early on, the student will have a little bit of trouble with something and the teacher will highlight this by giving extra time and attention to that student until they get it; later the student will have some trouble with something else, and the teacher will be quick to give more attention to that student; the teacher is now constantly watching the student to see if they need help and in the back of their mind, they are counting off how much longer they will wait before broaching to subject of failure into the conversation; this puts stress on the teacher to produce results in the student to avoid failure which translates into expectations put onto the student to perform.  Thus, the environment is no longer low threat.  Through their actions, the teacher has implied a threat and has set expectations without explicitly saying anything.

Traveling in a new country or city is just the same, except the responsibility of setting the tone and environment is on the shoulders of the travelers, meaning myself and my travel companions.  I can easily set a low threat atmosphere by having no expectations of what will happen, however this can easily be spoiled by others who have come with expectations or needs that must be met.  I’ve found that anytime I’ve traveled with a plan in mind, things tend to become more stressful.  This happens for two reasons that I’ve been able to identify: 1) when there is a plan or expectation, then things are less flexible and plans tend to orient themselves around the fulfillment of certain objectives 2) when the plan is off course and things change unexpectedly, people begin to complain, which doesn’t help anyone.  The best travel companions are those who don’t complain and don’t have expectations.

So, back to the point, new environment means new challenges and low threat as long as you aren’t afraid of failing, which means you are willing to wait when you miss a bus or train, and starve when you get stuck somewhere without food, and other types of mishaps that occur.  I’ve been through these before and have realized that those aren’t things to be afraid of at all.  In fact, being tired, lost, and hungry has stretched me in the past to become creative and string together seemingly unrelated bits and phrases from my limited grasp of the language to get what I want, whether it be food or directions.  In fact, once in France, I was able to pull out some Mandarin along with my broken French.  I have also been surprised at how well hand gestures work internationally and I believe that deep down, there is a standard sign language that people inherently know when they are born.

The value of travel for me is that learning and changing experience mentally as I struggle to survive in a new city or country and knowing that I can endure failure.  This allows me to make mistakes safely and figure out better ways to do things.  The question I’d like to figure out now is, how can I create that right now where I am and where I live?  I think the problem is pride.  Let me explain.

After living in the same place for awhile, I feel like it’s expected that I know where things are and how things work around my home.  When I don’t, I feel an even greater sense of failure because I haven’t lived up to the expectation in myself that I’m familiar with things here.  Perhaps the key is to go easier on myself and allow myself to make mistakes, to not have expectations and to not complain when things don’t go as expected.  I suppose that’s harder when I’m not on holiday, because I’m dealing with my own life and I have a greater vested interest in the outcome.  When traveling, I usually only have two major goals, get on the plane in, and make sure I make it on the plane out, everything in between doesn’t matter too much.  Living day to day though, I don’t have a plane out, or an exit, I’m here for the duration, and what happens matters.  But I still can’t be so paralyzed that I can’t make mistakes and be free to learn and explore and grow.