Dear Gabby,
I am a 21-year-old male with long hair and a big heart. I live in Dayton, OH with my mother and brother. I really enjoy the wilderness more than anything in the world. I am not the richest man in the world, but I really want to travel outside of the U.S.—this is starting to be a problem. I feel so out of place in my hometown—it’s not even funny. There are nothing but bums and drug addicts, whom I honestly feel are going nowhere in life. It’s kind of hard to better myself when all my peers want to just get [explicit] up all the time. When I ask them to go on road trips or anything, they still just want to get messed up. I want to travel the world and have someone go with me out of the country, but nobody that I know would want to do the same thing. What do I do about this trip? I don’t want to go alone.
Sincerely,
Trying to find myself
Dear Trying to find myself,
Alright Mr. big heart, I first want to let you know you’re definitely not alone in this travelling passion. It’s just a matter of finding people who want to travel just as much as you do. I know lots of people that have got the travelling bug, just remember there are a lot of factors that go into travelling like expenses, time and
transportation. Sometimes I think we fantasize about the idea of getting out of this town and exploring new places, but in the end we still carry our past and emotions, so if you don’t have a good relationship with yourself and aren’t happy with who you are as a person, it wont matter where you go or who you’re with because you’ll still be struggling internally.
When I talk to a lot of teachers especially at Sinclair, the most helpful thing I have learned from them is to create and build your own support system. Find people who are positive and who have the same interests as you, but who also push you to be a better person. It might sound complicated and like a lot of work, but in the end it will benefit you because you’ll have people by your side who are valuable to you and your life.
I think once you establish and build a support system with people who strengthen you and not break you down then you’ll feel like you have direction in life. You could think about studying abroad. This would give you a chance to continue your schooling, while still exploring the world. There are many times where you can find scholarships for this, or find a host family that would have you live with them for a certain amount of weeks or months. Sinclair has a study abroad program that you can get credit for, and you can travel with other students or by yourself visit www.sinclair.edu/about/offices/gsp/studyabroad/ for more information.