Stopping Traveling Is the Beginning of Aging!

Romain Rolland once said:

'Many people die at 20 or 30. After that age, they merely become their own shadows. The rest of their lives are spent imitating themselves, repeating day after day, more mechanically, more pretentiously, what they did, thought, loved, and hated in their prime.'

Some people grow old at 30 but are buried at 70.

The true start of aging is not the wrinkles at the corners of your eyes or the white hair on your head, but when your heart no longer burns and you lose your passion for life.

There is no greater sorrow than a withered heart; real aging is when the heart grows old.

Zhou Guoping's 'Outside the Car Window' writes:

'If one day I am merely buried in the affairs of life, no longer interested in gazing at the scenery outside the car window or listening to the music within my heart, then I will have truly grown old and vulgar.'

So how can we prevent our hearts from aging before our bodies?

Some say through reading, some say through networking, some say by hanging out with young people! But in my view, there is one more thing: continuous travel!

By travel here, I don't mean the sunset-red senior tour groups that sleep on the bus and take photos at stops, nor the harmonious team-building trips organized by companies. It means traveling with a curious heart, to experience and to feel.

Henry Miller said:

'The purpose of our travels is never a geographical noun, but to learn a new perspective on things.' Rejecting new things makes us truly old.

Travel is a kind of learning that allows you to see the world with the eyes of a baby. And in a baby's eyes, the world is different every day.

Travel lets you break free from the confined life you've built.

In the movie 'Groundhog Day,' the protagonist's life stagnates from Groundhog Day onward—repeating February 2nd day after day.

He talks to a drunk at a bar, expressing his boredom with the endless repetition. But the drunk says, 'That's how I live every day.'

This sentence captures the norm for most people.

How many of us are trapped in 'one day,' repeating yesterday's life, seeing the same people, doing the same things?

You could walk the route from home to the office with your eyes closed; you know which takeout is cheapest, which fruit is freshest, which boss is friendliest—like the back of your hand.

Day after day of work and life, monotonous and repetitive, like a stagnant pool, creating no ripples.

You may be all too familiar with the little circle you live in—familiar to the point of numbness.

But when you start to travel, stepping out of that circle, out of the familiar street, out of the familiar fortress, you'll discover that there is a larger, unknown world out there.

Every day on the journey is unknown; every scenery on the road is brand new. Travel makes you, like a child, once again full of curiosity about the world.

Travel keeps you fresh to the world.

'Everyone is born a tadpole, but grows up to become a frog at the bottom of a well. This is not your fault, just your limitation, but you should find ways to compensate. To understand the world, you must go far away.'

Travel tells you that the world's landscapes are so different.

If your hometown has no winter, the first time you see snow, you might happily run in the snowfield like a child, have a snowball fight, roll snowballs;

If your hometown has no sea, the first time you see the ocean, you might be moved to tears by the beauty of 'the boundless sea and sky'...

Travel tells you that there are really many kinds of people in this world.

They live in all kinds of ways, hold different values, making the world complex and interesting, resonating with those who understand them and giving topics to those who don't.

They are ascetics, gamblers, artists, business tycoons, farmers, hermits, spiritual practitioners, urban wanderers...

Without travel, you would never meet them.

Travel makes you brave to 'try new things'.

For most people, when young, they are not afraid to 'trial and error', with plenty of time to correct.

But as we grow older, we become more worried about loss, afraid to make mistakes, afraid to fall, afraid to break up, afraid to lose a job, afraid to leave the comfort zone...

Often, people sink deeper and deeper into the comfort zone, accustomed to the 9-to-6 routine, accustomed to living just to survive. But without travel, without trying, you won't know that life has many other possibilities.

When you travel, jumping out of the fixed life scene and trying new things, you will discover:

That the snow-capped peaks are not unreachable;

That skydiving is not as terrifying as imagined;

That fried insects can actually be delicious;

That meeting an old friend in a distant land is so touching;

That strangers can hit it off at first sight...

Travel allows you to start a new life in a different identity, make new attempts, and rediscover yourself.

Travel 'preserves the freshness' of your heart.

It seems that as we grow older, it becomes harder to make friends with whom we can laugh heartily. How long has it been since you opened your heart to make new friends?

In fact, it's not that your circle has shrunk, but that your heart has aged—too old to give your original intent, too old to build walls, so that few can enter and almost none can leave.

And travel turns us back into 'young fools'.

On the journey, everyone shows their truest, most relaxed self. You often see faces smiling brighter than children's. You can let loose and play as if you've never grown up.

Travel keeps us forever young, forever teary-eyed.

On the journey, stop to listen to others' stories, to watch how a tree grows, how a river flows, how clouds drift, how dew gathers... to feel your own heartbeat.

There are moments that make you laugh, moments that make you cry, and moments that make you feel the young heart beating.

Life is actually like a journey.

How you treat it, it will treat you.

We cannot determine the length of life, but travel can increase its width and extend its length.

Days on a journey seem slower and longer than usual.

The same three days, spent in your familiar city, feel very fast; but if you go to a completely new place, time feels longer.

It turns out that in three days, you can visit so many places, see so many sights and strangers.

Just like the principle of a straw and an hourglass: the flow rate may be the same, but when you watch the hourglass, the width increases, and it feels like the sand flows more slowly.

So, go travel! Time passes, looks age, but only those who have seen more scenery and experienced more stories as years go by can resist the erosion of time and become more moving.

Go travel! Don't wait until you are truly too old to move before you regret it!

May you be on the road,

With both a burning blood and a clear gaze,

With both the poetry of looking up at the stars and the firmness of standing on the ground.

Stopping traveling is the beginning of aging!

May you stay forever young, forever teary-eyed.

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