What does the conversation in your head sound like?

Most people carry a conversation inside of their head all day. They’re constantly judging what situations mean, predicting what’s coming in the future, and what’s going on right now. Most people assume that that voice inside of their head is themselves, and that the voice constantly critiquing and judging is where their intelligence and their power comes from. But neither is true.

The voice inside of your head is really your ego. It’s the part of you that is attached to results. It’s also the part of you that created the entire idea of results. Without it, advanced society wouldn’t be possible, but with too much of it, a meaningful, fulfilled life is impossible.

What’s that supposed to mean?

The dialog inside of each of us judges based on the information it already has. Because it can only judge based on what it’s already experienced or learned, it is incapable of truly grasping any situation outside of its immediate self. Consider a person who’s in debt. Their ego may decide being in debt is a very bad thing, and their inner being may believe that to be true too. So the ego decides to feel bad. It starts a conversation with itself explaining why this happened, and finds someone to blame. But the ego doesn’t possess all information. It doesn’t know whether your debt is temporary or long term, and it can’t tell whether it’s really good or bad.

So you’ve lost money and time, but is the lesson of proper financial management worth more than your time spent worrying about finances? And why is there worry? Where does that come from?

Worry is a direct result of the ego. It sets itself up to become important when there’s a problem. By worrying we get nothing done. Instead, we give ourselves the emotion of drama and of importance of our problems. Instead, we should be concentrating on creating a change for ourselves.

How many of your thoughts are negative and useless? For even the most intelligent people, negative thoughts are a constant threat to happiness and a meaningful life. If we get bound up in negativity, we lose our opportunity to create. This is why we need mental discipline and awareness. Without these, even the most promising of minds are incapable of producing what the world needs most.

So what’s a mental fast?

I believe everything purported to be good should be testable by personal experience. If a religion is really good, incorporating it should immediately improve the quality of my life, and those around me. If it doesn’t, then it isn’t a fit, and I gave it a try. The same with your mental fast. Give it a trial period, and if it works for you, keep it. If it doesn’t, drop it. Move on to the next thing.

My mental fast is freedom from negative thoughts for 10 days. It may seem like an impossible task, but as soon I find myself slipping into a negative thought pattern, I snap myself out of it. I ask myself what actions I can take instead of dwelling on what is or isn’t right with my life situation. If I can’t take any action, I accept the situation for what it is, and try not to judge it. The majority of bad situations from my past have turned out in a positive way, and with the benefit of hindsight, I realize I really can’t judge them as good or bad, even from this far away. I remind myself of this, and I move on.

The benefits are amazing. I’ve been doing this for two days, and already my mind is much more disciplined than it was before. I’m aware of little things that would have nagged me before, and now I drop them without a second thought. I’ve started developing a real sense of gratitude for life. Learning to control my mind in this way has opened the doors for potential. If I can make this big of a change in my thought patterns in two days, imagine what I can do when I really examine the processes of my mind.

So what are you waiting for? Start examining your thoughts, and eliminate the negative and worry. They’re useless.

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In a today’s culture of so much hurry, time for travel is often the first thing to get sacrificed. Why give ourselves the luxury of time to lie around, producing nothing, while the rest of the world continues to move, change, and leave us behind? In this competitive world, it seems ridiculous to opt out of participation for an extended period of time.

It doesn’t matter what stage of life you’re in, either. For kids graduating from high school, there’s the real economic benefit of college. For kids graduating from college, there’s the need to get real work experience. For the experienced, there’s a need to pay college tuitions back. And so on till death. Excuse after excuse for never taking the time to stop, and take a step outside.

No matter where you start from, creating the time to travel is going to be a difficult task. That’s where its reward lies.

A common problem with Americans these days is a love of the easy. Every other advertisement is promoting an “easy” solution to difficult problems. Overweight? Just call us, and we’ll mail you meals to slim you down. Unsatisfied with your life? Just take these pills and your brain will be fixed.

Only, these “easy” solutions never solve the real, underlying problems. You aren’t physically active enough because you don’t take the time for fitness. Your lifestyle bores you to death because you haven’t taken the time to figure out what wouldn’t.

The solution to these problems is challenge.

It’s easy to put off working out or changing your lifestyle. It’s very difficult to take a step back, look at your life, and decide significant parts of it are just plain wrong.

This is where long term travel comes in to help.

It’s impossible to get a full perspective on yourself while on the hamster wheel of daily habit. Travel shocks you out of these habits and gives you time to reflect. These two simple changes start a chain of events that lead to personal growth and understanding.

Just starting the process of planning for a trip leads to personal growth. You can’t leave for six months at a time with an unhealthy financial situation. If you’re in debt, travel is a real motivation to get out of it. How quickly can you turn around your financial situation so you can see the world?

If you’re not in debt, the prospect of saving for a few months of travel can be just as intimidating. How difficult would it be to save $10,000 for a full year of travel, and what changes in my lifestyle would be necessary to make that possible?

Either way, you’re forced to simplify your life into what really matters. Is buying that new computer really going to improve your life, or is it going to mean another month’s worth of delay for the trip? This little mental shift puts things into focus. You work and spend more efficiently. All of these mental shifts before you even stepped foot on a plane.

But then what about once you’ve left?

Will you really learn anything meaningful while drinking Margaritas on the beach in Thailand?

Without hesitation, the answer is yes. If you’ve worked hard and sacrificed to be able to sit on a beach and drink margaritas for a few weeks, then you deserve it. I think you’ll realize how quickly you can get sick of lying on a beach and drinking margaritas.

Because, once you’ve started challenging yourself to become better (in your own eyes) you get addicted to the process. You’ll realize that sitting around on a beach getting sloshed for years isn’t going to make you a better person, and it definitely isn’t going to lead to a life you’ll be proud of.

So you’ll look to the next challenge: What does a life you would be proud to live look like?

This is such a huge, fundamental question that it blows me away no one asks it at school. Even if we’re put on this planet for no other purpose than procreation and gene selection (hah!), this question is still of the utmost importance. What kind of a life do you want to live?

Of course, culturally we’re programmed to have a similar response as everyone else within our culture. For Americans, it would be a big house, a nice car, a great job, and a happy little family. But once we shock ourselves outside of our immediate culture, we realize how relatively unimportant that big house and nice car are. What matters universally takes over instead.

And those universal things include a great job and a happy family. A great job matters, because regardless of what we do, we have to continue working, to continue producing. There is no way we can get to the point where we can cease to produce meaningful contributions to the world. It’s flawed logic to stay at a job just because the pay is good. Ultimately, the pay is not nearly as significant as the portion of your life you wasted not living how you wanted.

The biggest spiritual lessons from travel are universal truths. No matter what religion you follow, it’s become popular because there is some universal truth to it. No religion has ever encompassed every universal truth, but all of the big ones address them in their own way to their own audience. A few months of travel and reflection will give you at least a few universal truths, and that alone is worth the price of entry. Discovering that Jesus’ words are actual, testable truths, that the Buddhist’s eightfold path is a testable design for a meaningful life, or that the Hindu concept of being here now is really the most profound concept you’ve read, you’ll find the spiritual gems of wisdom that have been handed down from generation to generation. Wisdom kept in the hands of those brave enough to seek it.

And that wisdom is what society needs most. Now and forever. So step outside and ask yourself if you’re willing to seek it yourself.

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