Why should your children undertake early global travel?
You dream of providing your children with the best education. You dream of your children growing up to be fluent, global players in their chosen fields. How can you help your children both learn about themselves and the external world, so that they can achieve their own dreams? The answer lies in making your children travel beyond the familiar – to the unfamiliar, the unknown – early in their lives.
Unfamiliar and unknown environments offer your children the greatest opportunities to unfold themselves and to understand their innermost potential.
Formal education is absolutely necessary, but not sufficient, in fostering your children to contribute meaningfully in the newer, interconnected world. Travel is equally critical. There is no other time-tested way in helping young people know self than by encouraging them to travel, both responsibly and purposefully.
Almost 2400 years ago, Plato – in his work “The Republic” – beautifully described a group of men in a cave. These men had never seen any source of light, sun or fire. Living primarily in darkness, and conditioned to seeing only shadows, they could never imagine that there is another reality called light. When one of these men is forcefully dragged out of the cave, he would first be very angry and distressed; be unable to see sun, because it would be too much to take in for a man who had only seen shadows; but would finally acclimatize to the alternate reality. Today, we live in a world of interconnected differences, and many countries recognize that they cannot afford to let their children grow in caves.
The future holds the most to those who can learn, adapt, and embrace both the interconnectedness of – and the differences in – the emerging world. Knowing self by discovering others, will empower your children to make better choices for themselves, and for a better world.
After all, a Gandhi – who was expelled from his caste for traveling abroad – could not have become a Mahatma had he not traveled in a ship to London in his teens; and later in a train in South Africa.