by Jane Ann Carroll | Summer 2023 |
What if it goes wrong? This question ate at my mind throughout finals week, the car ride to Dallas, and the line through security. I could not get rid of this thought, and after a rough travel experience the year before, I was terrified of trying again. I tried to ease my anxiety with mantras like “It’s only two weeks” and “It’s going to be different,” but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get rid of the question, “What if it goes wrong.” Ultimately, nothing could change the fact that it was terrifying to try this new thing with nine people that I felt like I barely knew.
But I did it. Even after a few tears on the plane, I was on my way to Thailand for the first time, and I was doing it. After watching several movies and playing far too many Monopoly games, we landed in Bangkok, Thailand. On the train ride into the city – for the first time in weeks – I couldn’t hear the voice that was telling me that it could go wrong. As we wandered Bangkok, all experiencing it for the first time, I found myself excited to try new things. Even when it sounded gross (like coagulated blood), I wasn’t worried about it going wrong; I was just excited to do it. The infectious excitement of my peers kept spreading, and while there were still moments of anxiety, the wonder of being in a new place won out.
The excitement of trying new things stayed at an all-time high throughout the entire trip. I discovered a new favorite food (Khao Soi, which sadly cannot be replicated in America) and felt myself growing close to the people around me. Together, we tried a variety of fun drinks (some good, some bad), risked traffic in the backs of tuk-tuks, and dared each other to touch the local lizards (only Ben did). I didn’t even think about the things that were going wrong as negatives like I was so worried about, and instead, they just became part of the reality of traveling.
On the second to last day of our trip, those anxious words made their way back into my head. We were about to do one of the coolest things, yet I was terrified of what could go wrong. I waited until the last second to get up on the elephant, riding on the others’ excitement while harboring my own anxiety. The first few minutes of riding our elephant were terrifying. I was over 10 feet in the air, and I just had to sit while I let our guide lead the elephant. So many different scenarios of it going wrong were flashing in my mind, and as we took a break to wait out the rain, I casually joked that I would be fine going back now. But that wasn’t the plan. That wouldn’t have allowed me to fully experience the wonder that was bathing the elephants in the middle of a waterfall. While it felt impossible at first, I soon found myself having the time of my life. This study abroad quickly became the adventure of a lifetime and challenged me to try new things despite the fact that things can – and will – go wrong. However, I learned that sometimes the question you need to ask yourself instead is, what can go right?
