To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to

Charles Horton Cooley, the philosopher of society and self, once wrote: “To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.” At first, these words may seem simple, as though they merely praise a holiday. Yet in truth, they reveal a profound wisdom about the human condition: that our daily labor and surroundings do not merely shape our habits, but also our very identity. To step away from them is to step outside the mirror in which we are constantly reflected.

When Cooley speaks of the working environment, he means more than the place of one’s employment. He refers to the entire rhythm of daily life—the office, the factory, the market stall, the patterns of routine, the faces we see, the burdens we carry, and the expectations placed upon us. These things form a cage, subtle and invisible, in which our self is forged day by day. In such a space, we begin to mistake habit for essence, role for soul. Thus, when one escapes that environment, it feels as though one has escaped not only the walls but the self that those walls helped to build.

The philosopher tells us that this is the chief advantage of travel and change. Travel is not only to see mountains or seas, but to rediscover the self without the scaffolding of routine. When a man leaves behind his desk, his duties, his familiar streets, he sees himself anew. He becomes, for a time, no longer a worker, a citizen, a cog in a machine, but a wanderer, a soul. In this way, travel frees not only the body but the spirit, and reveals to us that our identity is more fluid and vast than our daily roles allow.

History offers many examples. Consider the case of Leo Tolstoy, who, as a young man, left the aristocratic salons of Moscow to travel among peasants and soldiers. It was on these journeys that he shed, even briefly, the skin of nobleman and found within himself the deeper voice of prophet and writer. Or think of Siddhartha Gautama, who left his palace, and in walking among sickness and poverty, discovered not the prince he was raised to be, but the Buddha he was destined to become. In both, it was change of place that revealed a deeper self.

Yet Cooley’s words carry not only promise but warning. For if we never escape our working environment, we risk becoming trapped in a single version of ourselves. We forget that the self is not fixed but vast, not one face but many. Without change, we may wither, mistaking monotony for identity. Travel and change are not luxuries—they are necessary acts of liberation, small resurrections that allow us to be born anew.

The meaning, then, is this: that by leaving our routines, we loosen the chains that bind us to a single reflection. By walking strange streets, by meeting unfamiliar people, by seeing with new eyes, we discover forgotten parts of ourselves. Travel is not simply escape—it is transformation. To step away from the self you know is to allow another, truer self to emerge.

Therefore, O seeker of wisdom, heed Cooley’s teaching. Do not cling too tightly to your routines. Make space in your life for travel and change, whether through great journeys across oceans or small shifts of environment in your own land. Step away from your daily labors, not only for rest, but to rediscover the soul that waits beyond duty. In doing so, you will return not diminished, but renewed—more whole, more awake, more free.

And let this truth be etched in your heart: “To get away from one’s working environment is to get away from one’s self.” For beyond the walls of habit lies the greater self, and it is only in change that we encounter it fully.