Roaming makes me come alive.

A coach once asked me, “Why do you need to travel?”

It was a paralyzing inquiry. I didn’t have an answer — not a logical one, at least.

Travel is expensive — not just in money, but in time and energy. It disrupts the routines that give us momentum. It throws a wrench into the well-oiled machinery of everyday life.

So for years I convinced myself that travel was unnecessary. Yes, it was a mechanism to open up new perspectives, but it should be done sparingly in the context of building a life, a business, or roots. It was a luxury.

And yet there remained a deep desire to travel, to move, to go places.

It wasn’t logical. I could conjure up poetic justifications — but the truth is simpler: travel makes me feel fully alive.

I keep returning to that simple but powerful directive: know thyself. The more I reflect on my life, the more I see how I conformed to certain notions of what I should be, packaged as "this way of being is actually good for you", while ignoring my own desires.

My early years had a distinct privilege: traveling with my mother. She instilled in me a love for travel, frequently telling me "travel is an education you can never get in a classroom". We took trips to Europe and New York, spending time seeing art and watching theatre.

Those experiences became a part of my being.

The beauty of travel extends even to the liminal space between places. The car rides to the airports with your friends and family, the contemplative train rides, the packed flights — they all form part of this feeling of movement.

And I have learned that I am a creature that needs to roam.

Imagine a migratory bird or a grazing mammal forced to stay put. When caged in a zoo, when confined to a limited space to roam, they become ill from their frustration. There is a sort of need that is beyond simply food and water. Perhaps it is not just the change of seasons, nor the exercise of muscles, nor the grass and air that they need — it is a change of place that moves something within them.

For most of my life, I obsessed over productivity — building a beautiful, self-imposed cage of routines. Wake up early. Go to the gym. Crush the to-do list. Repeat.

But under the surface, I felt restless. I said no to trips, stayed home when I wanted to go, declined invitations, stuck to structure even when it didn’t serve me — all to protect the momentum I thought I needed. I clung to control, afraid that any disruption might unravel the whole thing.

The implicit internal contract was this: if you do all the right things, if you're a good boy who follows the rules and gets straight As, you'll get the rewards.

And yet there was no one else on the other end signing the deal. I agreed to confine myself to a series of "shoulds" rather than following my deepest desires.

Desire is a tricky thing. It can lead us down the path of insatiable hunger, dopamine loops, cheap hits of satisfaction.

But that’s not the kind of desire I mean. I’m talking about something steadier — a calling, a way of being that makes you feel aligned. It’s not about a high. It’s about flow. It’s that rare feeling when everything just feels right, even if you can’t explain why.

So how would I answer my coach now?

I need to travel because I am a creature who needs to roam, to be wild and free. It is a part of who I am. Not doing so makes me ill, in the same way that confining a roaming animal makes it ill.

Now let's turn the reflection outward. What implicit "shoulds" are you placing on your own life? What ways do you conform to something you think is best but feels contrary to your nature?

Maybe you can’t uproot everything right now. Most of us can’t.

But you can start listening. Start noticing when your inner animal paces the cage.

What is it wired to do? And what would it take to let it stretch its legs again?