The following is taken from parts of a blog by Jonathan Mead, creator of the personal development site illuminated mind. It’s a really great side that promotes the less boring side of personal development.

If we are all truly different, why do we try to force the unique shapes of our personalities, skills, beliefs and ideas into the square peg of social acceptance?

Here’s the basic template for life:

• Learn to walk/speak, be a good boy/good girl
• Go to school, get good grades
• Go to college, graduate. Try to find something you love, but eventually sacrifice your passion and settle for a career choice that’s practical.
• Get a job
• Get married
• Have kids
• Die

This is the most common life pattern. Most of us think that this is just normal; it’s just the way it is damnit. If our only motive to live is to survive, to keep the hamster wheel spinning, then I’m done. I just can’t imagine a life where security is the highest value. Security is definitely an important part of life, our survival depends on it. But excitement, adventure, pain, turbulence, drama, passion, mystery and pleasure are equally important. I think we forget this because security is the basis for us being able to experience all those other wonderful things. Yet security is a means, it’s not the reason for living itself. Just as we don’t live to eat, we eat to live; we don’t find happiness to seek security, we seek security to facilitate happiness.

The truth is, most of us know what we want. We know what makes us feel alive and what makes us feel dead. The answer then isn’t looking for yourself, but having the courage to live unabashedly, to do what truly brings you bliss. The collateral of claiming your personal freedom and rejecting the cubicle mind mentality might mean getting some strange looks and being completely rejected once in a while. People might question your choice to not go for so-called security. People might think you’re a total nut-case. But that’s okay. You’d probably look at the same people living fearlessly and wonder what the hell they’re doing. That’s the beauty of diversity. Homogeneity is the bane of life.

I know what you are thinking; that this is a travel site and you didn’t ask for this self help crap, and you know what you’re right. But can’t we apply this thinking to how we travel. Is there a template to how the majority of us travel, and are we only travelling to places and doing things because it’s what we are supposed to do?

Here’s how I think the travel template goes:

• Do no research of your own
• Go to travel agent, get their opinion on where you should go, this opinion will be based on a stereotype of your age and gender
• Book hotels in the touristy part of town
• Buy Lonely Planet guide to validate choice of destination and accommodation
• Follow every major tourist attraction recommendation from travel agent/Lonely Planet regardless of whether you are interested
• Take lots of photos to prove that you have been to places that you weren’t really interested in but thought you should visit anyway
• Bore family and friends with said photos
• Repeat

At trippedoff, we think the purpose of travelling is to experience things that immerse yourself in the culture of your destination, whether that be drinking beer and eating hotdogs at a NY Yankees game, or living with Tibetan Monks for a year, just make the experience about you and not an exercise in ticking off some boxes. So find out where you want to go and why, book things yourself, go out and there and just experience the world as it was meant to be….unplanned.

Tomorrow I will follow up with a list of what we think are the most overrated box ticking destinations (I’ll look forward to your comments).

As a special gift, Jonathan Mead has offered to give away a copy of his latest eBook, Reclaim Your Dreams, to the next member to post a new experience.

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