Management teaches you a lot of stuff about managing businesses, people, accounts, and finances. And then there is actual life. You get out of school; meet people in various capacities, from all walks of life and eventually learn to deal with them. Travel, especially in India, teaches you some hard-hitting truths about life, which no management school can do. How many of these have you learnt?
- Pack for any contingency
Traveling in India throws up many surprises on its way, not all of them are pleasant. It pays to pack everything from an extra toothbrush to earplugs to pepper spray to digestive powders in your bag pack. More is always less.
- The cheaper the mode of transport, the more helpful the people
Your fellow travelers in sleeper coaches, state transport buses, share autos will prove to be the kindest and most helpful as compared to those you encounter while traveling on flights and first AC coaches.
- You can make friends anywhere
A smile, sharing food and drink with a stranger, helping a fellow traveler with their luggage is all it takes for you to make a new friend anywhere.
- You can make mistakes all the time
Don’t worry too much about making mistakes. Learn from each one of them and go on. Make new mistakes, but don’t repeat the same ones!
- Forget the plan
There’s no such thing as a “plan” when it comes to travel. You may start off with a set itinerary, but as you explore your surroundings, you realize there’s so much more to see and experience.
- Improved digestion
While traveling, you have no control over your diet and food choices. You eat what you get. Plus, you become immune to most pathogens and bacteria.
- Adapt, adapt, adapt
You quickly learn to change according to the situation and the people around you. Don’t have a hotel reservation? No problem. Just snuggle into a sleeping bag. No food at your destination. Just eat your back up rations of granola bars and chocolate.
- You realize who you are
You are in the midst of strangers, in a wholly new place, with no support system whatsoever and at the mercy of nature. This is the perfect testing ground for you to get in touch with yourself.
- More money will never solve all problems
If management taught you to think that more money equals more success and happiness, you find that idea neatly chucked out when you travel. You will discover the true meaning of happiness, contentment and fulfillment.
- People are all the same, everywhere
Whether it is the President of the USA or a laborer in the fields of Vidarbha or a poet straining to get his verse right, people everywhere want the same things- love, acceptance, validation, respect and the right to freedom.
Travel is a great leveling ground. It shatters all your pre held notions and gets you in touch with yourself. Go on, pick up that bag and get going!
