Travel Sabbatical after your MBA | 6 months across 8 countries (1/n)

n = To be defined basis mood ,

If you dont want to read, You can see the travel pictures on my Instagram instead ;)

What is the one thing that this travel sabbatical has taught me?

Every time people get to know that I took 6 months off to travel the world, I undoubtedly get asked, “So did it change your life? Was there like a Eureka moment?”

When I was about to start my travel, I remember talking to a mentor of mine who told me not to expect much out of the sabbatical. It turned out to be true. I did not find a purpose nor did I really have a breakthrough moment. But I felt a change. A change in how I viewed life. A change in how I resolved to live the rest of my life.

With every passing year just like how the same book can have different meanings when you re-read it, in the same manner, your perspective on life fundamentally changes basis your ever increasing life experiences. But imagine if your spectrum of life experiences start to stagnate? How do you counter that? It's a problem I ponder over regularly.

When you come across a new thought on a day-to-day basis in most cases the structure of your current life environment manages to reject the thought and pushes you back into the usual way of thought.

One significant benefit of long-duration travel is that you are exposed to new ideas and places with nothing else to do but deep-dive into your new-found thoughts and emotions for months on an end. That fundamentally makes you feel things. “Feel” being the important word here. We read and remember but usually cant feel. That in my mind is also the difference between intelligence and wisdom.

Imagine someone is trying to sell you a month-long vacation in the Bahamas. The more the person can make you visualize and help you imagine the sensations and emotions that you will feel while you will be sipping your Pina Colada in the Bahamas while the warm rays of the sun that gently fall on your skin or the sound of the waves take you into a meditative state, the more likely it is that you will buy that package. In the same manner, a lot of things that you read about on a day to day basis on diversity and the world of opportunities sink in much deeper when you are actually experiencing significantly changing geographical terrain and human demographics on a consistent basis with nothing in the world that is distracting you from the brilliance or the magnanimity of this beautiful planet.

1. The special me or just a regular me— The more diversity that you see, the more you realize how you are different and could potentially have a role to play. You relate and reject a lot of new ideas and thoughts on a day to day basis. You realize that you are not special. But you also realize that you can leverage your unique experiences to create exceptional moments /experiences for others and self. This has made me just want to express stronger on things that come naturally to self and purpose or meaning(if any) shall emerge from the actions. There is no answer and nor is there any destination. The world is carrying on. You play a game where you figure out a reason to do something with your time while on this planet and that’s awesome!
2. It’s not a Zero-Sum game — There is more than enough for everyone. You simply need to zoom out and enter and experience multiple ecosystems. There is so much money and opportunity for impact everywhere with access to capital now in every nook and corner. When we go and study and live in the same place we get a feeling that the opportunities are limited in the same 100 companies. (I know I did).
3. Most of us no longer live in a resource-starved world but most of our decisions, saving patterns are based on worst-case scenarios and scarcity because we are stuck within a small ecosystem.
4. You learn to rest: Success will not elude you if you take a few years off. Rather it will prepare to strengthen and make you much more resilient during times when opportunities will arise again. At the very least it will make you an exponentially more interesting person. The urge to be productive every moment of your life backfires in the long run.
5. I used to be asked this question a lot and it would always leave me dumbfounded — What would you do if you didn't need to fear failure or had unlimited wealth? Flip it — What would you still do if you knew that you would fail and definitely wouldn't have enough resources for it. That's what you need to pick up instead. There is no one out there to give you those unlimited resources and the quicker you realize that the world does not revolve around you or your community the more empowered and fearless it makes you.
6. Belief in human evolution and the fact that the world is not ending. Regardless of whatever adversity will come our way, humans have an exceptionally strong survival instinct. Things will change. Especially when you go to places that are extremely different from your usual human habitat you realize that humans have an amazing capability to survive even in the most extreme of conditions. The world is not coming to an end. Humans have never had it better.

The rigor or learnings that unstructured travel can give you after you have experienced a bit of real-life adds a different tint to your perspective on things. It shows you that if everything stops and you need to start afresh there is so much out there. It removes fear from your soul.

Each one of us is living someone else’s idea of a perfect life. That is the truth and it’s not just a saying. While India is too polluted and chaotic, Singapore is too perfect and predictable for most. While China is perceived as closed, Europe has too few opportunities for social mobility, and Bali too calm and unambitious. Russia well is just too bloody cold (But it's beautiful!)

Most want an out from their respective ecosystem. One learning here. Your ecosystem is not restraining you, you are simply being lured by the possibility of the happy mysterious. Every emotion(happiness, misery, sorrow, euphoria) baselines after a while anyway.

The single most important thing that I love asking people about is — How do you explore yourself better. What do you do consciously to learn the limits of your emotions and capabilities and decisions and then stretch them? Hence the importance of investing in yourself beyond your degrees. When you travel you meet outliers and people who have been exploring such diverse things in life. You will meet extreme versions of yourselves and you will meet similar people to you. You will meet someone who you feel is diametrically opposite in your eyes and then 3 drinks down realize that he/she simply has the same worries and joys. This amplifies when you are indulging in intercultural interaction in unregulated and unpredictable environments.

The perfect life does not exist and in my mind nor does it need to. You simply need to create something that will work for you without creating a negative impact on those around you.

The older I grow I realize that many cliches are also quite true. Be yourself is the simplest one but the most difficult to follow. Invest in yourself to find this true self or else life might simply not be worth it.

So What is the one thing that this travel sabbatical has taught me?

It has taught me that a sabbatical should be treated as a beginning and not an end. The end of a sabbatical will leave you hungry for more and rather than satiating your desire to see the world, It is guaranteed to make you more curious about life.

Did something that taught you more about yourself? Reach out :) Would love to know more!