介绍:
想成为我们的主播，欢迎加微信 xdfbook 投稿。
一段美文，一首英文歌，或是一点生活感想，全由你做主。
《世界那么大，要不要去看看》
I Quit My 9 to 5 Job to Travel (And It Didn’t Solve All of My Problems)
Around four years ago today, I was sitting in an office, staring out the window, dreaming of travel. I’d finished university a few years earlier and instead of continuing to chase my passions, I had stayed put1). I was trapped like a deer in the headlights of life. Paralysed and unable to do anything.
My friends all seemed to have gone on to better things. But me? I still lived with my parents, moving between menial jobs, doing not a lot of anything. Just sitting in an office day-by-day. Staring out that window. Dreaming.
Always my dreams turned to travel. Adventure, excitement. I would get depressed at work wondering about why I wasn’t on a beach instead. Or standing at the top of a mountain.
I was fooling myself. I didn’t want adventure. I wanted to escape. To get out of the dull hole that had become my life. So I booked a one-way ticket to Canada and soon found myself on a working holiday.
In the weeks before leaving, a lot of co-workers, friends, and family started to fill my head with doubts. How are you going to survive!? How will you manage? I didn’t know the answers. But I felt like I was barely surviving in England, so leaving didn’t faze me. My life was about to change for the better. It had happened to so many others. Travel had changed their lives. It would change mine too. This was the start of my own inspiring story.
One Year Later
Exactly one year later I was in Canada. Sitting in an office much like the one I’d left behind. Staring out of another window. Wondering what had happened with my inspiring travel story. I still had a job I didn’t enjoy, most of my time was spent doing things I didn’t care about. Still, now I had a counter-argument to these woes. They didn’t matter because I was travelling. I was having an adventure. That was enough.
I reasoned that working a job I didn’t love was worth the sacrifice. I was living in a new place, had good friends, eating in amazing restaurants, enjoying myself. I was gaining confidence and self-belief. Something I’d never managed back home. For once I was free to do whatever I wanted, free from the expectations of others.
Two and a Half Years Later
Skip forward to now. I’ve done a few more menial jobs I’ve disliked. Lived in a couple more countries. Recently arriving in Australia.
When I arrived here, I was plunged into crisis mode. I could see my year and life before me. I’d find another menial job, maybe explore some of Australia. Do that for a year. Go home, then probably fall back into the same dull routine. I came to the realisation that despite travelling, I’m no happier than when I had left England. In four years, I’ve learnt a lot, but nothing that’s directly had an impact on my problems or life.
Many seem to think that travel is the cure-all answer to every problem. That by travelling, we will be starting our own inspirational story. That’s how I felt before leaving. I thought I would find myself. That I would be so completely changed by travel that every problem I had would be erased. But most problems I had at home remain with me still. I still have little self-belief, still experience anxiety and depression. Still stuck in those headlights of life.
After almost four years of travel, I finally realise that when I left to travel, it wasn’t to solve my problems but to run away from them.
Will Travel Solve Your Problems?
A lot of us fall into the trap of thinking travel will solve our problems. But some problems can only be solved by tackling them head on. Travel won’t make you any happier if it doesn’t change anything that relates to your problems.
To illustrate this, let’s imagine that your goal in life is to become an alpaca2) farmer. You’re stuck in a dead end3) job at home, not an alpaca in sight. You’re depressed and think you’ll never own that farm.
You’ve seen all these articles online about travel and how it lead to so much happiness and wish fulfillment for others. Plus it’s so easy. All you need to do is leave. Pretty soon you’re also thinking that travel will make you happy and fulfil your dreams. So you go away and travel and you have a great time.
Travel is so intense that it can dazzle you for months or even years. You’re experiencing so many new things that you’re constantly in the now. The future doesn’t matter when you’re bungee jumping4) off an elephant. But soon things settle down and when you get time to think, your mind will soon drift back to that farm.
Travel becomes that menial job, the world becomes your office. You find yourself staring longingly outwards. Dreaming of alpacas.
That’s not to say your travel has been wasted. Maybe it will just show you what you’ve always known anyway. That you really need to focus on the alpaca problem. Maybe it will give you enough confidence to follow that alpaca dream.
But if you already know what your problems are, you don’t need to travel to solve them. Travel may not even help!
The Positive Benefits of Travel
This isn’t to say that travel isn’t completely therapeutic5). Travelling around alone can be great.
Many of us spend our whole lives on set paths that are more or less planned. We go to school, university, have the family and kids. We never leave this path or our bubble6). We’re constantly surrounded by others, their opinions and expectations.
By travelling, you can get off that path for a bit. For the first time in your life, there is no real plan and nobody else around us to influence our decisions. It’s just us and nobody else. We have to rely on ourselves. Become completely independent. For once you will be truly alone and this can help you to learn more about your limits and needs. But will it make you an alpaca farmer? I’m not so sure.
Travel can solve some problems. Maybe your only problem is that you lack confidence or you’re socially anxious. Travel can help you to overcome these things. Being in new places can push you to your limits and really test you. But I’m not sure it can help too much when it comes to those deep existential problems.
Quitting Your Job to Scoop7) Ice Cream
One story that has been making the rounds is about a woman who quit her $95,000 a year job to scoop ice cream on a tropical island. Many have been inspired by her story, but I scoff in their direction. I think people are romanticising her story. Scooping ice cream on a tropical island. Watching beautiful sunsets every night. We can see ourselves wanting the same, especially when we compare it to our own lives. Sitting in an office all day, staring out the window hoping for more. She’s escaped that life. We think her life sounds perfect.
But it’s not perfect. We’re not looking at the reality. After six months of ice cream scooping, I would be ready to kill myself—as would most of us. It sounds cool, but how many of us would actually be satisfied with scooping ice cream for a living, regardless of where we were?
I’m sure it worked for her because for once in her life she was alone without expectations. Nobody around to judge you. The only person you know is you. Everybody you know is so far away that they see your life through a lens. Whoa, she’s on a tropical island selling ice cream. Her life is a dream.
This tropical dream could be a nightmare though. Stuck on an island thousands of miles from our friends and family. Still working in a low-waged job where we can barely afford to live. Our creature comforts gone. We’d all be satisfied for a year or two, but eventually we’d start to question our existence. Because again our surroundings have changed but we haven’t. Our problems aren’t solved just put to the background for a bit. Travel for many is a short term solution to a long term problem.
The narrative of travelling to solve our woes sells newspapers though, so we’ll keep on hearing it and keep on believing it. Just remember, that doesn’t make it true. If you already know your problems, you don’t need travel to solve them. You can tackle them head on at home. Maybe you do need to get away from your surroundings, family and friends to help. But if you travel they’ll still be there when you get back, along with all your problems.
大概是四年前的今天，我正坐在办公室里，凝望窗外，梦想去旅行。在几年前，我完成了大学学业。那会儿我选择了安稳，而不是继续追寻梦想。我像一头牢笼中的小鹿，在生活大灯的笼罩下，呆若木鸡，又对一切无能为力。
我的朋友们几乎都继续去追寻更好的生活了，可我呢？我还跟父母住在一起，先后做的都是卑微的工作，一事无成，就这样日复一日地坐在办公室里，呆望窗外，做着白日梦。
我总是梦想去旅行，冒险探索，惊心动魄。我会对工作打不起精神，为自己不能徜徉在海滩或屹立于山巅而疑惑。
我那是在自欺欺人。我并不想冒险，而是想逃避，逃避无聊的生活境况。于是我订了一张去往加拿大的单程票，并且很快发现自己在一边度假一边工作。
离开前的几周里，许多同事、朋友、家人开始向我提出各种怀疑。你打算怎么生存！？你怎么处理各种难题？对答案我一无所知。但我觉得在英格兰实在熬不下去了，所以离开不会让我惊慌失措。我的生活会变得更加美好。这在许多人身上应验过。旅行改变了他们的生活，也会改变我的生活。这会是我励志故事的开端。
一年后
整整一年后，我住在加拿大，坐在办公室里——跟我已逃离的那间办公室几乎一样——再一次凝望着窗外，惊异于我那励志的旅行故事到底怎么了。我仍做着一份自己不怎么喜欢的工作，把大部分时间花在我不感兴趣的事情上。然而，现在我对这些不开心的事有了不同的辩解理由。这都不算什么，因为我在旅途中。我在进行一场冒险之旅。这就足够了。
我说服自己，做一份不喜欢的工作，这种牺牲是值得的。因为我住在一个新地方，有好朋友，到好吃的餐厅享受美食，享受生活。我获得了自信，那是我在家时做不到的。至少这一次我可以随心所欲做我想做的事，不用活在他人的期待里。
…………
文章摘自：《新东方英语》杂志2016年10月号
