Learning From Literature

Travel As Transformation by Gregory V. Diehl

Cover of Travel as Transformation by Gregory Diehl

Travel As Transformation: Conquer the Limits of Culture to Discover Your Own Identity by Gregory V. Diehl is a travel / self-help book published in 2016.

Travel can have a profound impact on shaping one’s identity. Through travel, we gain the ability to step outside the ideological frameworks we’ve inherited, allowing us to discover new ways of thinking and living. The book delves into how immersion in different cultures can challenge our assumptions, helping us explore our authentic selves beyond the boundaries of societal expectations. It encourages travelers to seek self-knowledge, questioning long-held beliefs and opening themselves up to transformation.

Diehl highlights how travel exposes us to a multitude of lifestyles, philosophies, and solutions to life’s challenges, broadening our understanding of the world and ourselves. True freedom comes from creating a life that aligns with personal values, not conforming to collective traditions.

Purchase the book by clicking this link!

Enjoy!

Table of Contents

Limitations, Perspectives, & Self-Growth
  • Societal values are formed by people interacting
    • Collective values manifest in everything – architecture, laws, etc
    • “Normal” is born & perpetuates a pattern of values onto children
  • We see the world through our subjective lens
    • Use past experiences to understand new observations
  • Travel opens a door to reality
    • Discover with your own eyes how things work
    • “Without travel, I couldn’t have seen that the world I knew was just one of many worlds”
  • Exposure to new perspectives helps us explore ourselves
    • With awareness of locals’ expectations, own prejudices are more clear
    • Realize limits you inherited from your culture are just as arbitrary as theirs – old “normals” are not there anymore
    • Expands boundaries we were given to assess reality
  • Until you have explored what is available, you can’t be confident in life choices
Change?
  • Stress = when we can’t process changes fast enough
    • Life is change
  • Travel to unfamiliar lands helps you accept change
    • Challenges everything you consider normal (prior assumptions)
    • Unsure of even the most basic things – people, water, etc
    • Requires dealing with unexpected situations
Taking The First Step
  • The older you are, the more difficult to step away from conventions of our culture
    • Ways of thinking root themselves
    • We pass these limiting ideas to future generations
  • Many Americans are overly self-assured in how the world worked
    • Without travel, your idea of places come from media, secondhand, or statistics that can’t capture the essence of a place
  • People don’t travel because of internal resistance to change, not difficulty
  • Realize there is more out there
    • Dunning-Kruger Effect – people with less knowledge have higher confidence
Practicalities Of Travel
  • Travel brings obvious challenges
    • Language barriers, safety, etc
  • There’s unsavory parts of any population if you look hard enough
  • Solo travel is the best way to see things in a new light
    • Unfiltered by perceptions of others around you
  • Read more about practicalities of travel in Vagabonding by Rolf Potts
Main Ideas
  • Children are raised as receptacles for our outdated ideologies, limiting their ability to think independently and explore different expressions of their potential
  • Adults lose freedom with age as their self-concept rigidifies, making it harder to explore new ways to live authentically
  • Multicultural lifestyle offers exposure to various norms and values, allowing individuals to discover who they truly are without being bound by one culture’s expectations
  • True self-discovery requires understanding of what will enable personal thriving, not simply conforming to inherited cultural values
  • Barriers to living a passionate and authentic life are often psychological, rooted in cultural conditioning, rather than external limitations

Check out more Travel post!