Where Is Your International Passport? Go Look For It!
One major childhood dream I had was to travel abroad. I knew a good number of my friend whose dreams was also to leave the shore of our country. You can look back to when you were six, seven, eight or even ten to remember how you dreamt of traveling to America. We had grown up with the notion that every country outside our shores was America. Today, we know better!
As we grew up, we learnt about several countries and continents on the map and this changed our global perspective.
Whether you are in America, Europe, Asia, Australia or Europe, there is that innate dream we all share, to want to get away from the confines of our national boundaries.
We dream of getting back to those days when anyone could travel to anywhere on ship, boats or plane without any national or international limits. It’s never going to happen, but people are still enjoying he freedom to get to travel through nations every year.
There is always something out there to see and there is always a reason to make a journey out of your country. Yours may be to acquire a foreign education, another person may be for leisure, another person may be for business, some other person may just want to change environment.
If you are accustomed to watching movies form foreign land, you probably might have thought that you want to see those countries in reality. It’s great to visit those places you have always watched on television.
One major achievement through life will be the opportunity to live the kind of life you want to live and to travel to any country you want to get to with ease.
These days, with faster planes and better safety regulations, it has become increasingly safer and faster to travel to foreign nations from any corner of the earth. Airports can be found in every corner of the world. The challenge isn’t the means to get to anywhere across the world, it is actually the finance to sponsor that trip you want to make.
Making an international trip should be an intentional act. Some want to travel abroad because they think there are opportunities there that they don’t have in their home countries. This is especially true for those in third world countries.
At forty, you want to have had an opportunity to see what lands beyond your country look like. This will however depend on what connections you are making today or what connections you already have.
Those who get to travel out of their country are looked at with some regard. They have had a different perspective about life from seeing at a different perspective that others at the home front haven’t seen. It’s a knowledge acquiring experience to be able to see life from a different angle and to be to able influence others with this new knowledge.
One reason you should be inspired to plan a journey out is the need for you to bring your foreign land experience to bear in what happens in your homeland. Travelling is a learning experience to see how things are done elsewhere and to replicate those good things you’ve seen elsewhere at home.
Some persons travel out of their country and never return or return when they have become too old to make any meaningful impact. If you are considering making your international journeys in this light, understand that the essence of your living is for a life of impact and that impact should be felt also at home.
The world is a global village. What this means is that information about any place can be obtained at one’s finger tips. You can do business with anyone across the world without leaving the comfort of your sitting room. But this won’t take away the experience of seeing things as it is and taking you own does of lessons that arrive with it.
My friend Seun Lari Williams would seize an opportunity to travel Germany for his Masters Degree after he completed his law degree at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. A major cultural shock that he met was the fact that no one collected bus dues or train dues from any one. The Germans saw it as a responsibility to pay their bus dues without been asked in a box just beside the exit before exiting. This never happens in Nigeria. Nigerians would be looking for a way to milk the system in the name of their share of the national cake.
Such cultural shocks are what people discover as they travel from one country to another or from one culturally defined territory to another. And they could be real lessons of life.
In my home country Nigeria, people who get the privilege to travel overseas are treated as royalty when they return home. They are given a special tag “Americana” and as often the case, the best opportunities go to them. This is one of the stimulating factors that get people to want to travel out!
The first step to ever thinking of a voyage abroad is to get an international passport. Some persons may claim not to have anyone abroad. But you don’t have to have anyone outside the country to get an international passport. Just take the first steps first.
It’s not enough to desire, you have to commit yourself to seeking opportunities that are available for those who want to make the journey out. There are several legal opportunities like a scholarship, a visa lottery, an international work opportunity, a student exchange programme etc. It’s actually no longer the opportunities that are limited but your willingness to seize the numerous opportunities that are available.
Your international passport is your international identity that not only shows you are an international citizen but also grants you the opportunity to make any international visits to any country you want to visit.
If you are hoping to travel abroad, get an international passport. It is great knowing that when your opportunity to travel arrives, you are prepared for it.
Why should this be an achievement before you turn forty? I’d tell you why. Any knowledge you grab while in your twenties and thirties will define your life for the rest of your living years. But any knowledge you add in your sixties and seventies will only be an experience.
You can easily be influenced by the cultures of the people you meet in your international journeys when you are younger which can be a plus to you. When you grow older, it is difficult to bend. Your international experience at an old age will only be for the fun of it and not really for the mental education or effect that it can have.
Travelling to any country of your choice shouldn’t be a dream when you can work toward it and make it one of your top forty goals. You can’t be dreaming about America, Europe or Asia or even Africa and not be deliberate in taking the steps that will take you there.
Must you travel abroad? There’s no must around it. But truly successful people add their international ternary as one of their success stories, especially when they’ve been to more than one country.
A measure of your success will be defined by the places you have been to. If you’ve been abroad especially in the third world, it’s a sign that you’ve been successful even when it’s not the obvious truth.
While people are encouraged to stay home, what has turned the aviation industry to a multi trillion dollar industry is the people who are consistently making air trips daily, who are moving from one country to another.
The kind of connections you will make in an international air trip are worth the connections especially because those who make such trips have some kind of international connections and some means to sponsor their journey.
It’s great to also add to your vocabulary a few languages as part of your experiences. Being open minded to learn is important in helping you make the most of your international journeys.
Don’t just want to travel abroad because everyone thinks it is a great deal, travel because you have a target you are aiming at and you are wanting to seize the better opportunities that are over there to better your home front.
Those international companies we see scattered around our cities arrived because they left their home countries and they take the money they earn straight to their homeland. Companies from here should also head out to invest in other climes to also bring in wealth into the country. Think smart.
You can’t be a complete success in life if you haven’t at least left the shores of you country to one foreign country. Whether it’s for business, leisure, pleasure, education, talent development, sports, expansion, your country will be too small to hold back a successful you if you are thinking global.
Ministries are thinking global, businesses are heading global. If you aren’t thinking global at forty, you probably do not know what you want.
Don’t wait for the opportunity to arrive before you think of one. Take the first step and you will see the opportunities rushing at you. That first step is your international passport. The world will be at your mercy son!