I recently came across this statement by Carl Jung:
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
And funnily, it made me think of going on a trip. It reminded me of why travel has always been a pathway to growth, for me. Sure, laying on a beach is comfortable, but the only change I’ll see after that kind of trip is a quick-fade, return-to-pasty-white in a week tan. The best trips I have ever been on were those that brought me smack into another way of thinking, speaking, behaving, eating, living, and accomplishing things. This quote by Jung makes me think about that, and how jarring this can be at the time. When I have encountered these differences, and at times the frustration that goes along with them, and have embraced rather than judge them, true satisfaction and growth as a person always came.
Travel that takes me forcibly, by the hand, out of my life and my comfort zone–that is the trip I return from with a true glow, and not necessarily from the sun, either (though sometimes I get both)!
