What Going Back to Korea After 14 Years Taught Me

As a kid, there were three events I could count on each time summer rolled around:

-- summer baseball
-- my mother pulling me from summer baseball to go to summer school
-- visits to Seoul, Korea to visit family

Today, Korea has the 12th highest GDP in the world and has become one of the world's greatest hubs for technology.

But when I'd visit each summer it wasn't such a trendy place. People would ogle my brother and I as we'd amble down narrow streets. The tallest building in the country was 63 stories. And much of our summer were spent re-watching the same films on VHS from the local movie rental store down the street. 

I went back to Korea in 2014 for my cousin's wedding. It had been nearly 14 years since I stepped foot in the city my mother was born in and I recognized very little from my youth of youths. So much had changed. 

Everywhere I turned there was a new skyscraper going up, people everywhere were buried in their fancy touchscreens, and modern speed trains seamlessly ushered commuters to and fro. 

Part of me longed for those old days, while also feeling a sense of pride at the great strides the country had made.

But what makes travel so important, especially when you return to the places you've been before and have managed to capture a part of your soul is it shines a light on how YOU'VE changed as well -- How far you've come and how much you've evolved.

Too often we focus on our hangups, inadequacies, and mistakes. But when pay homage to that person, place, or community we may have taken a sabbatical from and then returned we're reminded of who we were and hopefully who we can still become.