8 ms·

Why does everyone say 'travel' or 'volunteer' when these questions get asked? I'm not being rhetorical or sarcastic. I genuinely don't know. I can only assume

• dwild 13y ago
  If volunteering feels like work, than you are doing it wrong. I remember the day I volunteer for a local video game convention. That week-end I did more hours than I would be ready to do for work. I also meet great people. You could argue that I liked it because it was a video game convention... but it's my point. Maybe I'm wrong but I think if you volunteer but you don't like what you do, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it (except if your goal was to do a good deed, but in this conversation, it's not the goal). However I don't think this is actually a solution for anyone. It worked well for me because these people were like me... and this is exactly why I think his idea of open co-working space is amazing. I hope to see more co-working space like that.
• mixmastamyk 13y ago
  When people talk about travel in this sense, it's not about schlepping your bag from point A to B. I like this quote: "One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." ~ Henry Miller
• peacemaker 13y ago
  Travelling really opens your eyes to the way the rest of the world works. You will find that your little bubble is such a tiny part of things and that's a GOOD thing. You will make friends, meet people with completely different mindsets, see amazing places and experience totally random (good and bad) things. And if all you care about is business, I can tell you that after a year travelling I had a notebook stuffed full of start-up ideas I didn't even know where to begin. Travelling is AWESOME.
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    • peacemaker 13y ago
      It sounds like you've made your mind up about how the world works and that's fine, but I think you'd be missing out on some great experiences by not doing at least a little travelling. I've also had several months off doing nothing but relax and I can tell you none of them were as productive (for ideas) as travelling was. Part of it is meeting people with different views on the world means they present you with unique problems you would never have thought of alone. Part of it is in the act of travelling itself - how could you improve certain aspects? Overall, it just opens your mind up to different ways of thinking, much like going to university does. I'd always recommend people to give it a try.
      • sown 13y ago
        > It sounds like you've made your mind up about how the world works and that's fine, but I think you'd be missing out on some great experiences by not doing at least a little travelling. I have travelled but I don't see what great experience I was missing out on. Could you give some examples of yours so when I try it again I'll know what to look for? > I've also had several months off doing nothing but relax and I can tell you none of them were as productive (for ideas) as travelling was. That is worthwhile and I will note it for the future. Having been out of work for 3 months last year I can agree with that. > Part of it is meeting people with different views on the world means they present you with unique problems you would never have thought of alone. Ah, but that feels kind of like a work-problem to solve. An agreeable problem but it's the kind of thing I do often. Besides, it's not like people in that country don't have programmers and need some american to come save them.
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        • malyk 13y ago
          > I have travelled but I don't see what great experience I was missing out on. Could you give some examples of yours so when I try it again I'll know what to look for? As an example, in 2011 I went to Europe for the first time; Spain and Italy. We went to Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, Venice, Florence, Rome. How did we get between cities in each country? High speed rail. It wasn't as inexpensive as I thought it would be, but the experience was much much better than flying. Sure, the US is a lot larger and it might only work well in some places, but it opened my eyes to a different, more pleasant and more efficient (from the travelers perspective at least) than flying is. In Barcelona, we rode the subway a bunch. The stations we were in all had a clock on the wall that counted down from 5 minutes. Not once did a train not show up before that countdown got to zero. I'm generally happy with the frequency of service of BART during commuting hours, but there are frequent train breakdowns, track maintenance, etc. that totally screw things up. I'm sure there are issues in the Barcelona subway as well, but maybe there is something to be learned about the appeal and utility of public transit seeing how it's done in other countries. Just two relatively minor things that you could read about in a book but not truly appreciate until you've experienced them in person.
• peterwwillis 13y ago
  Volunteering and traveling both put you in a position you are not normally in. They will give you new ways to look at things, from how you might be acting as a customer (volunteering) to how much work goes on behind the scenes (volunteering) and how different people live, work, and play (travel). It's mind-expansion. It's fun. It's rewarding. You make new friends. You find new things to love. Your perceptions change. You become a different person. Of course, you can also volunteer and travel and get absolutely nothing out of it. Depends.
  • sown 13y ago
    > Volunteering and traveling both put you in a position you are not normally in. Volunteering is work. Sometimes hard work, back breaking even. I don't do it for fun, and certainly not the pay. I did it a few times to try to see what it is people get from it, and while it was nice to help people in need, I don't see it as you listed. I'll probably do it again soon because someone has to do the work. > It's mind-expansion. It's fun. It's rewarding. You make new friends. You find new things to love. Your perceptions change. You become a different person. I don't see it as, "Man, you blew my mind" type expansion (what ever that means). In fact, a lot of what you just said could be applied to just plain work. Again, either people are getting something from it that I don't 'get' without having someone enunciate exactly what it is or people who give this advice don't really volunteer, or something that needs explaining to me.
    • graeme 13y ago
      Have you ever learned another language, or lived in another country for an extended period of time? Often when people say 'travel' they mean immerse yourself in another culture. One of the deepest learning experiences you can have that forever changes your view of the world and your own culture. You may have already had that. But if you haven't, understand that travel is as varied a thing as reading. There is a vast difference between War and Peace and a blog post.
      • sown 13y ago
        > Have you ever learned another language, or lived in another country for an extended period of time. Yes and yes. > Often when people say 'travel' they mean immerse yourself in another culture. One of the deepest learning experiences you can have that forever changes your view of the world and your own culture. I think the loose definition might be part of the problem. Some people might say that going to the west coast for a week and telling everyone how they touched a whale was like being born again vs living in another country for a month is confusing, and doesn't seem like the same problem. Still, having lived in another country where I could vaguely speak the language didn't seem so magical.
• vijayr 13y ago
  Question: did you volunteer alone? Did you code/write etc, that requires mostly working by yourself? I think it depends on the type of volunteering work. If you are going to teach, or work in a garden with others - then you have much higher chances of actually interacting with people. But if you end up doing "tech" stuff, not so much, and it ends up feeling like work (or worse)
  • sown 13y ago
    > Question: did you volunteer alone? Nope.
• bentcorner 13y ago
  > As for volunteering, which I've done, it feels exactly like work -- except even less people wanted to talk than before. I've volunteered in the past for a local community garden. It's physically demanding work, but it was great stepping away from all the technology in my home, not have to worry about "leading", "driving", or "innovating" like I do at work, and just take simple orders to do grunt work with the end goal of making a community better. Sure, I enjoy my day job and going home to watch Netflix. But variety makes for a richer life.
  • mratzloff 13y ago
    > I've volunteered in the past for a local community garden. It's physically demanding work, but it was great stepping away from all the technology in my home, not have to worry about "leading", "driving", or "innovating" like I do at work, and just take simple orders to do grunt work with the end goal of making a community better. When I was in college I was often taking 18-20 credit hours per semester while working 35 hours a week in an office job where I had enormous autonomy. I had a life outside of that as well, but I was still restless. So I got a second job at Target, perhaps 20-25 hours a week. I can empathize with the need to not be in charge and let someone else give the orders. I happily did whatever I was asked and let my mind completely shut off. The extra money was nice but not particularly significant. Eventually they talked about promoting me and so I quit. :-) Afterward, when I was feeling stressed out, I could mentally travel back to those evenings and weekends and "shut down".
• elangoc 13y ago
  Both travel and volunteering have to do with connecting with other people in the most quintessential ways. Volunteering has to do with helping people in need. When you do that, you realize the scope of how much fellow humans are in need. As social creatures, we humans can't but feel humbled and feel that there is still something meaningful worth striving for -- a sense of purpose. Given that we are all tech people here, it's safe to assume that daily needs and 'creature comforts' are so easily secured that we easily don't feel that sense of purpose as it pertains to ourselves. Volunteering connects with others who inherently have a sense of purpose, since they struggle, and the act of volunteering is an act of committing yourself to the purpose of helping fellow humans in need. Traveling opens your mind to new people and new cultures. And those ideas can get you to re-think what you believe, and you can grow as a person. You can also learn things to make the world around you better. What is the culture around education in Finland, and why is their ed. system so good? If Americans increasing want public transit, what does European rail transit have to each us? How could Bus Rapid Transit pioneered in S. America be even better? How can some cultures in Africa and India be a peek into human history 4000 years ago? Does South India's plant-based cuisines have the tastiest answer to current diet and environment movements in the US? We tech people & entrepreneurs are taught to build things that people want, so talk to users to find out what they want. We are also taught to leverage other experiences and ideas to inspire solutions to our problems at hand. It should be obvious, now, that both of those ideas are directly related to volunteering and traveling, respectively.
  • sown 13y ago
    > Volunteering has to do with helping people in need. I've volunteered before, as I mentioned. Given what you wrote I think you may have missed that sentence. The way you write it, you come across with less warmth and more smug; like you're talking to a dog that speaks english. I may not understand what's so magical about volunteering or travel but I'm not heartless. I imagine it's a mis-understanding, but you might want to consider how you present this. > And those ideas can get you to re-think what you believe, and you can grow as a person. This also has a similar issue. Do you mean that if I don't travel I'm less of a human, to be held in contempt? That seems to be the implication. Again, I think it's a miscommunication. Most of the things you mention don't require me to be physically over there.
• deleted 13y ago
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• ffn 13y ago
  Because most people are on the bandwagon that travelling and volunteering is the thing that enriches their lives. Personally, I can see where they're coming from, but for me, karaoke, creative writing, and dancing are a lot more engaging and fun... But it just so happens almost everything is more fun with people
  • sliverstorm 13y ago
    The original comment didn't dismiss creative activities- it was the first thing suggested!
• sliverstorm 13y ago
  Do people who give this advice actually go volunteer? I do, thank you very much. Volunteering feels like work because it is work. But it has important special properties. You aren't paid, so you aren't beholden. You get outside your regular circles and meet more people. You are likely making a positive impact, which not everyone feels they make at their day job. Certain types of volunteer work lets you do a hard day's labor, stand back and enjoy the feeling and admire the results, and then go back to your regular job the next day. In other words, you aren't trapped in hard labor every day.
  • sliverstorm 13y ago
    Oh, and one of my favorite parts: it is something different. It's nice to, one or two days a week, do work that is totally different from the work you do 9-5.
• barry-cotter 13y ago
  Why does everyone say 'travel' or 'volunteer' when these questions get asked? <Hansonian cynicism> Because of the signals it sends about them. It says that they have high openness, are altruistic and have high enough confidence to go to strange places. </Hansonian cynicism> Seriously, most people giving advice are (mostly subconsciously) doing it primarily to make themselves look good, or get the warm glow of being higher status than the person they are advising. This goes a long way to explaining why people are so eager to give advice, and why so much of it isn't good. Lots of good advice would be very unwise to give publicly because it sounds bad because it's cynical. If you want to help people donate money to the Against Malaria Foundation and then go look at their video page [http://www.againstmalaria.com/Videos.aspx http://www.againstmalaria.com/Videos.aspx] while reminding yourself that your money has gone a substantial portion of the way to saving a life ($800 per life, IIRC). Happiness resaerch suggest people get more satisfaction out of travelling than expriential happiness, looking back on it people are glad they did it.