wherever you go, there you are

TLW and I are on Day 2 of our Great London Adventure. We left Boston Friday night and landed in London on Saturday morning. We’re having a great time so far - a little jet-lagged, but drinking it in.

I put a lot of stock in travel to be transformative. I have found there is truth to Mark Twain’s quote:

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

I think you know you are traveling when you are uncomfortable (not physically necessarily), stressed, and being forced to figure out a new way of being. This is what is fatal to prejudice, etc. - struggling to get out of your existing prejudices and ways of being changes you, forces you to be more flexible, more open. Having to adapt and flex is what cracks open your mind to change.

But I am drawn back to Socrates’ great quote:

“Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels.”

In other words, wherever you go, there you are. Getting on a plane or a boat or a train or even a car is not going to change you. You have to have your mind cracked open and allow new ideas to come in. Too much comfort does not trigger change. Only stress triggers change. Travel is a great way to trigger stress. Otherwise, you just continue being who you were with new trappings.