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The Double-Edged Sword of Traveling as an American
There’s a strange dichotomy Americans often confront when traveling abroad
As American citizens, it’s easy to believe that our country is the center of the universe. The message is subtly ingrained in us from an early age. Even while many of us are taught to avoid such sweeping generalizations, growing up in this pivotal, trailblazing, and consumerist country has a way of shaping us.
Americans start to see themselves as the main cog in a machine and scan past the bigger picture. Spending our lives here, we forget we’re a piece in a puzzle of a billion moving parts.
In many regards, we’re blameless in our self-absorption. To look objectively at where America stands in history, there are indisputable areas in which we reign supreme. But our widely celebrated supremacy has also narrowed the lens through which we look at life.
Huge swaths of American citizens will never know the world outside of their backyard. They’re uncurious about it. They live their lives steeped in the illusion that America is the greatest country to ever grace the Earth, and that the entire planet revolves around our star-spangled republic. Why go anywhere else?
