“Hmmm, that’s a good question, a hard one to answer, though….”

Numerous were the times I received the above response in conversations regarding the classical “philosophy of life” questions: “What is our goal in life?” “What is the optimum pathway for happiness?” “What ultimate good for humanity we should strive for?” and so on.

Is that due solely to intellectual laziness? Or perhaps we stagnate in our comfort zones too much to allow such provocation to transpire? I hope to change that stagnation.

I am an Egyptian, and I left my family and country at the age of 15 to become a young engineering freshman at ISU.

At that critical, moldable, vulnerable age, the process of my gradual isolation from my culture, background and family started; a teenage Egyptian from lands of desert and sun transported to the distant, small, farm-country town of Ames, Iowa, among peers who were at least three years senior to me.

It was the first time I saw snow, the first time I traveled alone and the first time I spent a night away from anybody or anything that sounded, looked, smelled or tasted familiar.

Later, with dorm life, so intense was my immersion and disconnection from my origins that it would take a period of transition to speak my own language as I used to.

The challenges I faced could only be surpassed by the valuable treatment such a dense experience had on the building of my perspectives and life mottos. Not only do ventures of that sort — I believe — prompt interest in discovering one’s self and life goals, but they also provide for the temporary separation from heritage, and experimentation of the opposites that help us reach more objective, unbiased and un-inherited answers for such inquests.

To conclude: Guatama Buddha, the great mystic, became the inspiration symbol he is when he first got out of his homey, princely environment to see disease and poverty for the first time. It disturbed and provoked him enough to start his quest for truth and self-discovery, later known as the ‘Great Departure.’

I believe it is such steps that awaken life’s dormant — yet most important — questions, and such quests that help you to discover who you are, what you want, and live the results.

Ahmed AlNomany is an ISU Alum and a business development manager in Saudi Arabia.