I don’t normally think about this quote much. However, as I was preparing to depart on another adventure, I’m not only grateful for the ability I have developed to do so but for the enrichment travel has brought to my life.
From isolation growing up on the farm (150 miles to closest town of 10,000 population) to taking the leap!
At one point, I didn’t like the direction my life was headed. Basically, I was working, coming home exhausted, dropping to sleep, waking and repeating the cycle. One night as I reached to turn off my lamp, it dawned on me that I was in that cycle.
“Everyone dies. Not everyone really lives”
So I decided to do something, choose something different, change something. I had no idea where to begin so I began.
Now, years later, richly rewarded for that choice, I prepare to head off on another adventure. I’ll meet more people, savor more foods, develop relationships with new “travel family” members, create new memories and expand some more.
This morning I was talking to students from Germany as my friend from Chicago was leaving and the “escape artist” I met yesterday walked by. Last night I was talking with a couple from Israel when a friend from Ethiopia introduced me to her friend. My friend from Northern Spain Basque country was getting ready to go on a day trip.
Yes, we are definitely not in Kansas any more!
All because I once chose, even in ignorance, to do something and begin. I knew that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t ever get better at life!
Here’s the quote in my mind this morning:
“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. -Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain