Translator: Dan Meyer Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
As I approached my 30th birthday,
I looked back on what I had accomplished so far.
Professionally, I was doing great.
I'd gotten a full scholarship to university at 17,
was admitted to law school at 21,
and passed the bar by 24.
I was working as a nonprofit attorney,
representing clients that couldn't afford legal counsel,
and I was grateful to be in an area of law
that was not only rewarding
but also paid off my student loans completely after 10 years.
Still, my professional accomplishments
paled in comparison to the lack of accomplishment in my personal life.
Despite my best efforts,
I had no husband, no children, no pets, no plants.
This wasn't a big deal at first, but then everyone I knew
started getting married and having children.
I found myself celebrating the life milestones of others,
wondering why they weren't happening for me yet.
It didn't help
that as the new decade loomed closer, others started to weigh in:
"Have you thought about signing up for eharmony?" they'd ask.
"Did you know it's risky to have a baby in your 30s?"
As if I hadn't already looked into freezing my eggs.
These comments were made with good intentions,
but they made time go by even faster.
It felt like life was moving right along, and I was having difficulty keeping up.
I wanted to pause, restrategize,
and if necessary, reboot.
So that's exactly what I did.
I'd spent the better part of my 20s waiting
for someone else to walk into my life and change my daily reality.
I started to wonder,
What if that external circumstance never came to pass?
What if despite having the best online dating profile
or the cutest first-date outfit
or going to the grocery store every single day,
I still never met the person that I was meant to be with?
I had two choices:
I could continue to live my life in limbo,
or I could do something drastic.
I chose drastic.
It turns out my perceived drawbacks could actually be seen as benefits.
I had no children, no husband, no pets, no plants;
I could go wherever I wanted.
I could leave my house unoccupied for days at a time,
and everything would be exactly as I left it when I returned.
(Laughter)
So I replaced my goal of achieving a romantic milestone by 30
with something more attainable and fully within my control.
I set out to take 12 trips in 12 months and see the world solo
before my 30th birthday.
I found that there's power in flying solo
and that traveling alone can be transformative and curative.
Now, I know what you're thinking:
"Oh, this is 'Eat, Pray, Love.' I've heard this story."
But what if I told you that I didn't take a sabbatical
or spend months at my destination?
What if I told you that I took short trips,
all while keeping my day job
and teaching English online every single morning
to help fund my travels,
that I visited more than 40 cities across 11 countries
while working full-time as an attorney,
sipping a mojito in Cuba on Sunday
and being back in court by 9 a.m. on Monday morning?
Being alone made this possible.
I could direct all of my spare time and energy into achieving my goal.
I freed up three hours a night just by cutting out Tinder.
(Laughter)
I had prioritized dating for years, and it had gotten me nowhere.
So I went a completely different route.
I went from mindlessly swiping through candidates
to tracking, purchasing, and committing to that $300 round-trip flight to Europe.
My biggest mistake was waiting.
I'm proud to say that my efforts paid off.
I was able to check off bucket-list items
like riding in a hot-air balloon
at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta,
swinging off the edge of the world in Ecuador,
and watching the sunrise over Angkor Wat, Cambodia.
In the end,
I took 20 trips in 12 months - almost twice my goal.
Instead of trying to mold myself to meet societal expectations
or giving into the pressure that women face to be successful wives and mothers
in addition to their professional accomplishments,
I channeled all of that fear, that anxiety, all of that worry -
so much worry -
into something productive.
Max De Pree said,
"We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are."
If I had stuck to my routine,
hoping that one day an external force,
like a husband or a child,
would bring meaning to my life,
I would have never seen what it was like to find meaning all on my own.
Let's talk facts.
35.4 million people in the US live alone.
In fact, unmarried adults make up 45% of the population here in America,
and of that number, 64% have never been married,
23% are divorced,
and 13% are widowed.
You may think that you're the only one who's ever been single,
but the reality is you're in good company.
Here's another fact:
Loneliness has been shown to be as dangerous as cigarette smoking,
increasing our risk of an early death by 14%.
We are more connected than ever, yet we feel disconnected.
So what's my proposed solution?
Step outside your daily bubble.
Push your limits.
Travel solo.
Being alone is not a condition to be feared or avoided;
it's a recurring life stage that should be embraced.
It won't last forever, I promise.
People come and go in our lives.
But you have to learn to love being alone
because being alone is your default setting.
You can't run from it, you can't hasten it;
you just have to live it.
I took most of my trips alone,
and being alone actually ended up being my preferred method of traveling.
If I had had other people with me,
I would have never been able to experience what I call "solo-travel magic."
Let me give you an example.
Imagine finding yourself in the back of a strange van
in a strange country,
surrounded by people who were speaking a language you didn't understand.
How would you feel?
Uncomfortable? Awkward? Scared?
This happened to me on my very first trip.
But my reaction was a little different from what you would expect.
I was smiling,
squished in the back seat of a nine-person Italian family
in their rental van
as we were going around Meteora, Greece.
Meteora is a Game of Thrones location and UNESCO World Heritage Site -
not necessarily in that order -
famous for having massive pillar rock formations
with working monasteries balanced on top.
I'd woken up early that day so that I could hike
amongst the same paths that the monks had taken
when they were first building the monastery centuries ago.
There were two reservations on the tour that day -
myself and the nine-person Italian family.
Now, it took me a moment to warm up to them
because I thought for a second that they might not show up,
and it's that same kind of feeling as when you're sitting on an airplane
and the seat next to you is empty
and you secretly hope that person doesn't come.
(Laughter)
I was hoping I would luck out and get a private tour,
but that was not the case.
And when they showed up, it didn't take me long to see
that this family was loving, well-traveled, and very welcoming.
We spent the morning enjoying the views, learning about the history of the space,
and visiting two of the six working monasteries.
At the end of our tour,
they were going to go on to visit some of the remaining monasteries
and asked me to tag along with them in their rental van.
My other choices were to take a taxi
or forget about the monasteries altogether.
But I was on a time crunch
since the monasteries have limited hours of operation,
and I didn't go that far to miss out.
So, despite the advice I would give other solo travelers -
please don't go jumping in the back of vans -
(Laughter)
I found myself sitting in the back of a rental van,
squished between the two youngest siblings of the nine-person Italian family -
literally, everyone and their mother.
(Laughter)
And that feeling -
that "I could have never predicted that this was going to happen today,
but this is even better than I planned it" feeling -
that's solo-travel magic.
And I bring this story up for two reasons.
First, I would have never had that experience
if I had been traveling with a companion.
There's no way we could've fit another human into that van;
we were already at clown capacity.
(Laughter)
But more importantly, being alone allowed me to engage with this family
throughout the course of the morning
beyond a cursory,
"Hi, my name is Jen. Nice to meet you."
We talked about my legal career, my travel blog, my writing aspirations.
A year later, one of the siblings even contacted me on Facebook
to let me know that he started a blog because of me.
When you travel by yourself, you are forced to engage with new people.
Every word you speak is to somebody new,
be it your taxi driver or the front desk staff.
And these small but real connections will start to piece you back together.
Not only will you get some good stories out of it,
you'll realize the world has been there for you all along,
whether you're going five miles
or five continents away.
Marcel Proust said that
"The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes,
but in having new eyes."
You are surrounded by potential interactions.
No matter your age,
life can still surprise you.
No matter how routine you think that your life has gotten,
you haven't seen it all.
You don't need to have a party for 200 to have a special day.
You just need a new adventure.
Go find one.
Take a day trip or a long weekend from there, somewhere.
It won't take you long to see
that there is power in flying solo.
And the best part
is that you already have everything you need
to start discovering it.
Thank you.
(Applause)