When I got to college, my sister was starting work, and she

In the words of the traveler, “When I got to college, my sister was starting work, and she realized she had two weeks of vacation a year, so she called me and said, ‘Go abroad.’ So right after my freshman year, I went and I studied in Guatemala, and I studied in Kenya, and I studied in Italy, and it was incredible.” Here is not merely a tale of youthful wandering, but a lesson set before the ages. The speaker, Stephanie Ruhle, recounts the wisdom of a sister who, upon tasting the chains of labor, urged the younger soul to grasp freedom while it could still be held.

The sister, bound by the narrow allotment of “two weeks of vacation,” spoke with foresight, seeing in her own toil the urgency of seizing opportunity. Her counsel was not complaint but gift: a reminder that youth is rich not in gold but in time. Thus the call, “Go abroad,” was less command than blessing — a charge to seek horizons that labor might later forbid. Such is the eternal rhythm: those who first endure the yoke of work often teach the young to run swiftly toward discovery before the gate is shut.

And so the younger one journeyed, her freshman year behind her, to lands both near and far — to Guatemala, where the heart of the Americas beats with ancient roots; to Kenya, where the earth stretches vast beneath the sun; to Italy, where the stones themselves remember the glories of empires. In each place, not only knowledge but spirit was gathered, for the world itself became the teacher, and its diversity the curriculum.

The telling of this story is not for nostalgia alone, but for the instruction of future generations. To study, to travel, to immerse oneself in the lives of others — these are the treasures no coin can buy once the years are heavy with duty. The wisdom here is eternal: while one has strength, while one has time, one must step boldly into the wide world, for it is there that both heart and mind are enlarged.