Open Your Eyes And Find Yourself
In a recent Tedx Talk I watched, about a guy describing his nomadic journey through foreign lands (Africa and Asia), “Tom” speaks about all of his insanely crazy, out-of-the-box experiences; sailing across an ocean, having his head shaved by monks, clearly these are not your average everyday experiences.
I can only imagine how scary it must be to travel like a nomad to the most remote parts of the world, while probably facing the hardest things you’d ever have to do in your life. This is a journey through yourself just as much as it is through the world. For how long are you willing to hungry, how long are you going to wait for a hitchhike, at what point do you turn around and head back home?
Even though I have never ventured my way around a continent, I was still able to vividly empathise with many of his conundrums and dilemmas. My entrepreneurial journey has been my single most beneficial life experience till date. Most people travel as a way to find themselves. Without knowing I would, I happened to myself through entrepreneurship. Funny how the word venture is defined as
a risky or daring journey
or
a business enterprise, typically one that involves risk
Finding Yourself
While Tom ventured his way through the world to find himself, I ventured through the world of business and found myself. On the surface, he has travelled to x number of countries, I have started x number of businesses. But in reality, the experience of having ventured into the real world is what broadened our horizons wide enough for us to actually want to seek our true selves. In the real world, truths are constantly challenged. When one of your truths is challenged, its only natural for you to want to believe you’re right, however we don’t realise that what’s more beneficial to us as intellectual individuals is to find the truth. Finding yourself isn’t a singular event that occurs at a certain point in time. It’s a gradual, continuous process of conscious realisations that form into the parts of your being. It’s nuggets of wisdom that you take with you through life. Both travel and business forces you to venture out and interact with the real world. In the real world, your personal assumptions, ideals (and misconceptions) hold little value. If you’re not prepared to accept the truths of the real world, you’ll get chewed up and spat out in no time. Everyone learns truths throughout life, it happens all the time, and heres one you may or may not know by now; Some people know more useful truths than others and there’s always someone who knows more truths than you.You don’t get to see that dimension from within the box.
Living In A Box
The problem with living in the confines of a box is that more often than not, you tend to disregard alternative truths for those that you’ve assumed as absolute. In doing so, you adopt a skewed perception of reality as truth, and you don’t know any other way. In many cases you’re opposed or even repelled to an alternative reality. Here’s a reality, a third of the world eat with their hands yet “modern civilisation” consider that down right repulsive. In some cultures, males are more touchier with each other than others. In your world, you may perceive it as homosexuality yet in their world its just an expression of friendship, they’re just buddies hanging out with each other, quite literally. Or how about turning the table, the other side of the world finds us repulsive for cleaning our backsides with PAPER! And I can totally see why. You wouldn’t clean your dishes by just wiping them would you? While we may be able to counter argue and justify our way of life, at the same time, so can they.
Finding yourself begins with venturing out, exploring and then looking back at your box and questioning it’s dimensions. Your job is to constantly work on improving your box, just be aware of the boxes around you and make sure you’re not damaging someone elses’. I have ventured enough to advance my intellect however I have also ventured enough to know that there is always something I can learn, from absolutely anyone. Confidence is believing in yourself and knowing your value, arrogance is refusing to allow that of others. The line between the two is often, very thin.
“The world less travelled is a mind less ventured” — Prenny Abraham
