By William Lippincott

As I tell myself I am going to Europe for a few months soon, I still find myself in disbelief. This disbelief is not about doubting whether my actual trip will occur or not. It is more concerned with a total departure from my previously conceived ideas of what my life would look like at this point in it. Throughout most of my life I can identify a ghostly presence that shows itself through a promise of an outcome as long as one does an action. If you do well in school, you will go to a good college. If you graduate college with a good degree, you will make a lot of money. If you stay out of legal trouble, then you are a good person. But just as money can be made without college, my path in life does not need to be one way. I am not saying that my life cannot be lived this way. I simply believe  that one should never commit to their life being one way, or commit to an outcome instead of a journey. I do not want to tell myself that I will get certain things out of my trip to Europe, like possibly a brand new look on the world. In all probability I will have a new perspective, but there are so many external circumstances that need to fall in place for me to achieve this. If I hold myself to that expectation then there is a good chance that I will be disappointed by my unreal expectations. Instead, I will choose to tell myself that everyday, I will try to learn something new, and focus my attention on how beautiful a waterfall is instead of how comfortable my bed at home is. I need to tell myself everyday that my trip to Europe will not be exactly like any other persons’ and I cannot get out of it exactly what other people have gotten out of theirs as I am a different person than anyone else.

A large part of me wants to go on this trip because I need to understand that there is no plug in formula, similar for all people, for a beautiful life. All my actions have an outcome and I am responsible for all my actions. I cannot blame my environment or my genetics for why I act a certain way, I choose an action because I want to. Traveling to Europe alone will not broaden my horizons. I must choose to broaden them everyday by acting with broadening them as my goal. I am entirely responsible for getting anything beneficial out of this trip.  I do not want to say that going to college so that you can make a lot of money or following the law so that you are a good person are bad things to pursue. These are paths that I will choose as well as many people. I want to say that doing them only because you think it will make you happy or doing them because society tells you is both unhealthy and robs you of your personal, unique freedom of choice. Reclaiming this Agency  is my chief goal in traveling to Europe.