I went to India hoping it would change me — not into someone different, but into someone a little more solid, a little more true. Now I’m home, back in my usual routine, and I can’t quite point to what’s different. And yet something is. Fear is still there, but it no longer feels like a full stop. So I find myself asking: have I changed?

I never part with my passport—until an ashram in India asked me to leave it behind. What I expected to feel was anxiety. What I felt instead surprised me.

From solo travel to endurance challenges, so many of us choose the harder path. Not because we have to—but because something in us is drawn to it. So why do we do hard things?