I always want to travel the most when I get sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not literally, of course. I don\u2019t want to drag my feverish ass on an airplane and infect the whole Boeing with phlegm. But it\u2019s always when the idea seems to hit the hardest: perhaps because it\u2019s when I\u2019m at my most vulnerable. I miss everybody when I am sick. I miss my mom. I miss my ex-boyfriend. I miss my best friend who moved across the country and can no longer crawl into bed with me and read me tacky Internet quizzes to distract from my nausea. I miss everyone I\u2019ve loved and lost and feel estranged from when I get a simple stomach flu and that makes me want to disappear from my entire life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s something I\u2019ve noticed about the urge to wander: It hits the strongest when we\u2019re the most powerless. The desire to strap on a backpack, slam the front door and not look back is the ultimate \u201cF*ck you\u201d to whatever about your life is getting you down. \u201cYou could leave this all behind,\u201d Your brain coos. \u201cIt could all be that simple.\u201d And for those of us who\u2019ve chosen the escapist route before, we know it\u2019s true: there is nothing complicated about leaving. Nothing difficult about packing a bag, buying a plane ticket and finding an apartment someplace new. It\u2019s not an art. It is a habit and it\u2019s one that becomes all too easy with time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps that is a product of the society we have created: one where possibilities are limitless and no mistake is ever inescapable. We idealize leaving it all behind as the ultimate answer to our struggles. We see place as the problem and so we move on every time the urge to wander hits: we simply pack our bags, say our goodbyes and move along. This place wasn\u2019t the right place for me<\/em>, we reason. So onwards I go<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But here is what I\u2019ve noticed about so many people who wander: No place is ever enough. No destination is final. Happiness is fleeting, escapable, volatile as the weather in a given destination. We go where the sun shines and we leave when skies darken. It\u2019s the philosophy we live by both literally and figuratively. We are eternally in search of a better city, better job, better relationship, better life. When things are good, we stay. When things get tough, we pack up and move on. It\u2019s our way of taking control of a given situation: we abandon it before it has the chance to wear on us. We control it by destroying it all and then marvelling over our power. The irony of our own actions evades us. We don\u2019t see what we\u2019re leaving behind when we jump ship. We\u2019re onto the next, onto the new, onto the always bigger and better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When the urge to wander hits, it\u2019s never random. It is almost like a knee-jerk reaction for many of us. It is our lives telling us, if you stay, things will change<\/em>. And change freaks us out. We want change on our own accord \u2013 change that we decided on, change we orchestrated. The compulsion to move is an eternal game of cat-and-mouse in which we misidentify our role. If we\u2019re the ones choosing to move, then we\u2019re the pursuers and never the chased. We have the power. We\u2019re in control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But here\u2019s the truth about wandering: It does nothing but delay the inevitable. Change happens to all of us. If it does not find us on the road, it encircles us when we return home \u2013 we see the age in the faces of our family members, the progressions that our friends have made at work. We attend engagement parties and baby showers. We catch glimpses of the lives we don\u2019t necessarily want but which force us to grasp the absurdity of the choices we\u2019ve made. We haven\u2019t run from change, we\u2019ve run alongside it. We\u2019ve kept an even pace with everything that\u2019s shifted. And suddenly it seems like we may not be the cat in the game after all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with travel. It can be eye-opening, perspective-shifting and life-changing. But it can also be escapism. And when it\u2019s the latter, it begs us to re-evaluate. What is it about staying in one place that makes us tremble? Why do we so definitely need to move at every opportunity? What would happen if we stayed? Could we survive it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as there\u2019s a time to travel, there comes a time to stay put. And sometimes when the urge to wander hits, we have to learn to counter-act it. To step outside of ourselves and determine if it\u2019s truly the time to depart or if we\u2019re simply feeling threatened. If the changes life is trying to impose on us necessitate an escape or if they\u2019re a storm that we could weather. That we could maybe even grow from. That we might benefit from once it\u2019s all said and done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Next time the urge to wander hits, ask yourself: What am I running away from? What would happen if I didn\u2019t? What if I stuck to one place, to one commitment, to one way of living and saw it through right to the end? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Who would I become as a result? <\/p>\n\n\n\n And would that be so bad after all? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the urge to wander hits, it\u2019s never random. It is almost like a knee-jerk reaction for many of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114678431,"featured_media":1182265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"thoughtcatalog_call_to_action":"","tc_post_redirect":"","thoughtcatalog_is_sponsored_content":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[603229949,603198233],"tags":[],"anchortext":[],"posttemplate":[],"adcampaign":[],"coauthors":[219077519],"class_list":["post-1182264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mental-health","category-self-help"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/pexels-ellenouf-8904548.jpg","author_meta":null,"photo_credit":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114678431"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1182264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182267,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182264\/revisions\/1182267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1182265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1182264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1182264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1182264"},{"taxonomy":"anchortext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/anchortext?post=1182264"},{"taxonomy":"posttemplate","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posttemplate?post=1182264"},{"taxonomy":"adcampaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adcampaign?post=1182264"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1182264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}