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a traveler's note series
Traveling is actually not that Fun!
And will not make you happier as well
Research calls that Traveling will not make you happier
Seriously, it will not be that fun If you just go traveling, do some fun out there, and then return to your daily life once the holiday is over – without do anything in particular afterwards. You should know that there is even a stunning research which concludes that as soon as you finish your traveling, you will eventually come back to a happiness state which is about the same before the trip take place. In other words, traveling does not affect much to your future happiness.
If it can’t give you a long term happiness, then traveling is actually not that fun right?
Basically it is the anticipation of traveling that is responsible to make an illusion about the awesomeness of traveling. When we plan our next trip, we imagine how cool the destinations are, the beauty of the scene that we will live with and any other cool stuffs which those travel magazines have sold you for.
You don’t bother to think about the hardship to reach that destinations, you deny the facts that there is a possibility for you to get lost - or fooled - and you just pretend that everything will be going smoothly, without any trouble such as bad weather, bad mood or even bad traveling partner. You absolutely realised that in a real life, there will be no such thing as “everything will be smooth”. Challenges are there and it might be difficult to tackle. However, you decline to think about it during anticipation/planning period. That’s why making a traveling plan will always be much more fun than the traveling itself.
Means that traveling is as well over-rated.
Quit your job and go traveling?
Do not fall for such lies, because all the long term travelers that I met along the way - all of them are working - just on the place they are currently settling.
We all need money for living!
Traveling can even decrease your daily happiness rate?
Traveling couldn’t just make you happier, but somehow, it can even decrease your overall state of happiness. Whatever might happen, still traveling can be considered much more fun compared to your typical daily job. Sometimes, it turns out to be remarkably exciting until we feel as a dead men already when we realize that our time-off is going to be finished soon. We feel blue on the first day at the office and we keep wandering our mind for our next holiday, which might happen 5-6 months later.
Tired of working & feeling discomfort, then it happens to support the previous hypothesis on above paragraph that traveling does not affect much to your future happiness. By this case, it can even make your happiness state worsen.
Wow, wait.. I knew that it is totally not a good news since we live in an illusion that traveling does make our happiness state increased. Anyway, you can ask a question why would a lot of people spend a sum of money in traveling if this is not able to lever up their future happiness at all?
It is fun, but not in the long term.
Basically it is like an Opium, so addictive & quite expensive sometimes if you couldn’t control it well, then the side effect is worse if you really don’t do anything about it.
It is because the days you spend on holiday period is significantly different for what you usually spend on your routine job. And this will make you feel bad, and sad, especially once you are forced to come back to reality. During traveling, you might spend the whole days doing some fun stuffs such as hang-out with new friends, party all night long or moving from one region to other region - enjoying the new scene you are stopping by. Then when the holiday is over, you can’t simply accept the reality that you shall come back to your routine “stressful” day with the fact that there will be more than hundreds of emails that you need to follow up soon since you have left office for quite sometimes.
By then, you have fallen into an illusion that you think you can live your whole life in a holiday-state. Got no boss to report to, no responsibilities, nor any kind of things that you try to escape from back in the society. You convince yourself that your life is not in your cubicle and you shall travel the world as such life is so damn awesome. When in fact, it is not more than an illusion. An anticipation of traveling which is only existed in your imagination. Nomad-life is easy and all about fun - said no one ever.
You may realize that keep expecting the next holiday season to arrive is pathetic. Then here comes the dangerous part of traveling, when it can flame up your anger against your daily life. Right after traveling, it's possible that you would turn up to hate your life & eventually your overall happiness rate drops down significantly.
Basically it may be good if you want to lead a life which is not mainstream by leaving a-daily-office-life which you consider it stressful and meaningless. But before you take such decision, you need to think also that you can’t live your whole life solely by having a party everyday or by traveling aimlessly. Compensation law does exist. If you can feel bored for your daily office life, there might be an occasion that you will feel bored of traveling as well.
Go traveling because you have a purpose on it,
Not because you want to escape your current life.
Running away will not solve your problems.
Perhaps it can give you a brief fun that you can boast about, but not the happiness.
Never
Then what’s wrong with all the happiness that are reflected from the photos that your friends posted about their last holiday? How about such enthusiasm? Why do they look so energize rather than to be a dead man as I stated earlier? Am I just blabbering only?
No I am not, at least, that’s what I particularly feel for myself, years ago.
Traveling is fun, but perhaps only during that traveling session. It gave us an unforgettable memory, but again, only in a short period. When we come back to the office - and if we don't do anything about it (which will be explained in my next blog post) - our minds are forced to forget such memories - because of our daily office tasks which will fully occupy our heads. Then we were not more than just a part of marketing targets for those tour providers & resorts that eagerly wish for our money. We are merely a consumer.
I wrote this article not with the intention to prevent you for having a traveling during your holiday. Not at all. In fact, I even urge you to travel more but in a smarter way or at least, with some purposes injected. Anything you do that has no purpose, will have no value as well.
Perhaps you feel disagree with my above statements as you observed that some of the people you know looks so happy when they are on traveling or after they came back from traveling. That is certainly possible if those people you talk about do one of several things that I will explain on the next blog post. In my opinion, we need to do something as soon as our holiday is finished, or perhaps, during the holiday itself - so we can extend such fun feelings eventhough we have returned to our society life. And that is my main intention here, to provide you some suggestions based on my observation and experience to ensure that you can gain and extract longer happiness state although you have finished your holiday.
I want to prove it to you that the above hypothesis which claims that traveling does not affect the future happiness is wrong. It can surely give you a great impact, if you do it in a right way.
Basically, the idea is:
in order to gain happiness, we shall not only consume. We need to produce.
And when the happiness is granted, be persistent to keep those memories alive.
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