Oh, if a tree could wander
and move with foot and wings!
It would not suffer the axe blows
and not the pain of saws!

For would the sun not wander
away in every night ?
How could at ev’ry morning
the world be lighted up?

And if the ocean’s water
would not rise to the sky,
How would the plants be quickened
by streams and gentle rain?

The drop that left its homeland,
the sea, and then returned ?
It found an oyster waiting
and grew into a pearl.

Did Yusaf not leave his father,
in grief and tears and despair?
Did he not, by such a journey,
gain kingdom and fortune wide?

Did not the Prophet travel
to far Medina, friend?
And there he found a new kingdom
and ruled a hundred lands.

You lack a foot to travel?
Then journey into yourself!
And like a mine of rubies
receive the sunbeams? print!

Out of yourself ? such a journey
will lead you to your self,
It leads to transformation
of dust into pure gold!
— Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, If a Tree could Wander

After a couple of months of earnest, enlightening travel, New Hampshire greeted me with pollen and Trump signs. Not the welcome home I’d have chosen for myself. We must be crazy, mustn’t we, to revisit the same irritants year after year?

People try so hard to hold on to what always has been for them, instead of trying something different now and then. A walk around the World Showcase Lagoon at Epcot is not international travel any more than taking a cruise that drops you in a few places for a few hours each is, but at least it’s a small step into the unknown. Likewise, going to an Ethiopian restaurant isn’t the same as going to the country, but it sure as hell helps the family running the restaurant and might just inspire another step further into the world. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as Lao Tzu put it.

We don’t know how far our journey will take us, but we ought to venture while we can. Do the things that challenge our perception of the world. Give others the freedom to follow their own path, that they may broaden our own perspective. It’s not such a far-fetched concept, is it? We must go through our lives knowing we’re taking a first step into the unknown with every step. Change is the only constant.

So where do we go from here? Bold and audacious challenges, or shrinking to fit who we once were? Those shoes don’t fit anymore friend—we’ve come too far in our development to squeeze back into some idolized version of who we once were. Set a course and step to it. The journey into the self continues.