Traveling Frees Us From Our Prejudices
You have probably already experienced this so pleasant and soothing sensation that comes from traveling. Indeed, when you travel, you open your mind. You become more tolerant. You are able to understand your prejudices and move away from them to slowly get rid of them while having new experiences.
Traveling is the most authentic way to know the world, but also to know perfectly (without a veil to hide our view) the prejudices that we keep within us. We are automatically sure that our way of understanding life, of living it on a daily basis, is the right one. And when we travel, we discover how “weird” other people can be, or how “weird” we can be.
“What strange customs have these“ foreigners ”!”, “Why are they doing that?”, “He is really ridiculous…”, these are phrases that you have surely heard more than once around you, or that you have maybe yourselves pronounced.
The biggest prejudice: “my way of doing things is right, not yours”
There is a kind of distortion when you interpret this information from the outside. What is ours, what is familiar to us, what we are used to seeing and doing is what is “normal”. What is not part of our customs is strange, bizarre. It is as if there is a line between what to do and what not to do. Between the real way of doing and understanding things and the bizarre and senseless way of doing them.
To better understand, we will take an example. If you are a quiet, serene person, think about how it felt when the anger challenged your ability to control yourself. You have surely felt a feeling of strangeness in yourself, but also awkwardness: people who get angry little, for lack of practice, do not know how to get upset.
Even though what is familiar to us is this state of “stillness and serenity”, explosion, anger and rage are a part of us. Our different shades are part of the whole that defines us. We cannot try to deny parts of us that are essential just because we are not used to them showing up.
Our culture shapes us, but does not determine us
When we travel, the same thing happens to us. We cannot claim to understand only what belongs to us as a product of common sense, and what belongs to others as some kind of disaster that does not make sense. Cultural heritage, geographic and social environment define people and their customs.
The lives of those around us have shaped us since childhood. These are the experiences: thus, we come into contact with people who are different from us, we get out of our usual environment, we document ourselves, we travel and we try different routines, which relax the mold imposed by genetics. To the extent that we are able to look outward with curiosity and not with prejudice, we are taking a big step towards tolerance.
To claim that our way of understanding life should be the only one that is valid and meaningful is a very limiting way of thinking and which, instead of enriching us, will impoverish us. Poverty of spirit. Tell yourself that the real wealth comes from the lessons we learn day after day in our lives. Lessons that make us more open and more tolerant.
Look at life with curiosity and not with prejudices
If we could just stop staring at each other and fix our gaze further. With generosity and healthy curiosity. With a look that would symbolize a passage to other souls, other spirits, other ways of living. I free myself from prejudice to look at you, the stranger, with open arms. With a mind ready to learn.
And you will filter the experiences. You will have time to continue to build yourself as a person, with what you want and what you don’t want in your life. But if you come into contact with the world with your eyes closed, you won’t be able to see anything. Nothing but darkness. And the darkness is sometimes terrifying. If you open them, you will see the light. The light of openness to life… the light towards tolerance.
