When we leave somewhere, are we doing it for the sole purpose of leaving and getting away from our reality, life, and location? Or, are we leaving to escape that and throw ourselves head first into a completely foreign reality?

While leaving for Rome, I had no clue the reason why I was leaving, although for the first time in my life it had been a decision that I had never questioned once, in a year of planning, and something deep within my soul told me that it was necessary and a necessary step for myself and for my life.

Over the following months of arriving, I’d been forced to make decisions that I would have not previously known how to make before, let alone which choice to choose. I’d learned that I have a voice that only I can speak, and an adventure that is truly my own.

We don’t leave to escape, we leave to discover.

“There were times especially when I was traveling for ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, when, I swear to god, I would feel this weight of my female ancestors, all those Swedish farmwives from beyond the grave, who were like, “Go! Go to Naples! Eat more pizza! Go to India! Ride an elephant! Do it! Swim in the Indian Ocean. Read those books. Learn a language!'” -Elizabeth Gilbert, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’

Growth, and self discovery righteously begin with setting yourself outside the comfort zone of what you’re used to and being forced into surroundings that are foreign to yourself, your ways, and being challenged by your own personal views along with what excites you, scares you, and what you wish and dream for whether it be on a daily basis or a long term desire.

Surrendering yourself to your own personal, wild, wicked journey, rather it be external by flight, or internal by the decisions and thought processes you’re finding yourself making, is one of the truest things that you can do for yourself and your happiness.

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel – leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks – on your body or on your heart – are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”

-Anthony Bourdain

Our lives are beautiful, abstract, collages that ultimately will only ever make sense to us. We can tell stories, we can write, sing, create, but the words that only we have heard, the people that we have met, the foods that we have savored, these are what will mold us into our true self and what makes us happy. That will lead us to discovering new things about ourselves, human nature, and the world around us.

So set flight, eat, meet, and enjoy. For you and for your future self.