While I love curling up with my laptop or iPad to get absorbed in a 20 minute TED Talk segment, its not something I do regularly enough.   I love learning and even if it is on a topic that I have no general interest in (molecular biology, for instance) I can always come away from a TED Talk video a bit more educated and entertained.

The other day a friend posted a link to a TED Talk video by Chimamanda Adiche that I knew I had to sit down and watch right away. The woman in the video [embedded below] spoke beautifully and humorously on “The Danger of a Single Story” and it reminded me of why I believe travel is so important.  Of course its great to see the Louvre Museum in person in Paris, or to taste the local dishes in Seoul, but it is really more about just being somewhere, getting to know the people and the lives they lead.

Have you ever traveled to a place that you heard wonderful things about only to feel so-so about it once you’ve checked it out? Or gone someplace reluctantly based on other’s negative feedback yet when you arrive you feel as if you’ve found your second home? London was like that for me. All I knew about London before I went that it was cold and rainy, the food was bad and the people were pasty white and had bad teeth.  I likely never would have gone if it wasn’t for a work trip that required I head across the pond.

I was ready to be completely underwhelmed, but from the minute I stepped out of the black cab in Covent Garden, I was transformed. I loved London, grey weather, sooty streets, bad teeth and all. The negatives just didn’t stand a chance against all the things I loved. The single negative story of this city that I’d been fed did it a great disservice.

Of course London is a huge, thriving metropolis, and if I had not had a chance to discover the treasures it has to offer, the city would have kept right on thriving.  I would have lost out, but London would have been just fine.  Unfortunately it is not that easy for individuals or groups of people to recover from a single misinformed storyline about their history, culture or thoughts.  

As Ms. Adiche said at one point in her video about an American college roommate who had preconceived notions about her, “She felt sorry for me before she even knew me”.  The single story this roommate had fed about people who grew up in far off Africa, would never have been challenged had it not been for a college housing lottery.

“Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over  anad over again and that is what they become”.

So many times people from certain countries, regions or even religious backgrounds are painted with one color though that color does not… cannot… represent the group as a whole. Getting out into the world and meeting individuals helps to dispel and overwrite stereotypes.  And it is not to say, you’re going to find peace, love and joy in each and every person you come across. But at least you’ve had a chance to interact directly and to form an opinion true for you rather than what an inaccurate book or biased opinion might tell you.

Get out, see the world, explore the lands and people that you don’t normally get to meet in your daily routine.  Learn actively instead of being an armchair traveler. And if you’re not able to set off freely to all corners of the globe, don’t worry. Instead search for opportunities to experience new people in your own back yard.   The opportunities are out there. Take them!