Don't think, “You know what? If there are no chachamim around you in the city where you learn, exile yourself, put yourself into galut (exile), leave your house, and go to a town where there is Torah, even if there's extreme difficulty.” You have to leave your family, leave your comfort zone, leave friends, and go live in exile, to a spot where Torah is found. It's the most important thing in the world. Becoming a Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar) is the goal of every Jew.
So therefore, if you're not accomplishing that, you have to do what you need in order to get there, even if you need to do things that are going to be difficult for you in the short term. Don't say that the Torah is going to find you, that it's going to come after you: “I'll stay where I am, and a Torah scholar will eventually come to my town.” That's not going to happen. And even if it does happen, the time that you lose while you're waiting every single day, when you're not learning, is a waste. Every single day is precious. And therefore, you're losing time until a Torah scholar gets to you.
And don't think, “You know what? My friends who are learning with chachamim are going to come by when they get back from their journey, and they'll teach me everything they know,” because you're learning it secondhand. You're not learning it from a chacham directly. So therefore, when you're learning it from friends, from colleagues, they're not going to be able to teach you on a high level. They won't be able to answer all the questions that you have. You have to find a chacham. You have to find a sage himself.
Don't rely on your own understanding. Don't think, “You know what? I have the books in front of me. I have the text. I'll be able to understand it on my own,” because even the sevarot, even the way of thinking about Torah, has to be taught and learned from a master, from a chacham. So therefore, don't rely on your own understanding. Don't think that you can do it on your own, no matter what books or resources you have. Learning the craft directly from a master, from a Talmid Chacham themselves, is something that can't be compared to anything else out there.