It is somewhat refreshing to sum up to ourselves the positive impact new habits have on our routines, isn’t it?
Considering how deep and broad the recent changes to the whole travelling experience have been, we guess you might long for some guidance to reorient yourself in the new landscape. Just a hand for summing it up without flipping out…
Well, we did the job for you! We took the time to reflect, observe and write out in plain some of the (indeed many) benefits such a huge shift brought to our lives. Help yourself, read them out loud, and add more if you feel like – you’ll be surprised of how gratifying it can get.
So, how is the novel way of “being on the move” improving our lives?
Thanks to the increased uncertainty of schedules, we learnt to constantly create fluid back-up plans. Want it or not, we have been trained to tackle setbacks of different sorts – be it about accommodation, health, education tools, food habits, relationships, jobs, investment plans, etc.
We had no “ready to use” solution, just because the circumstances were all exceptional by definition. And all this did definitely enhance our flexibility skills – hopefully along with our sense of humor too!
A drop of dew, the hypnotic sound of the train on the railway, a passerby with a funny hat… Want it or not, limited options push us to focus on details and expand our ability to soak up information from the surroundings. Okay, just exaggerating, but think of how Anna Frank was seeing a whole world in her tiny secret flat – and then reckon how lucky we are having the chance to explore entire cities, regions, countries.
Yes, we are now more aware that there are heaps of experiences ready to be lived super close to us. Lived by just activating a superpower we all have, that one superpower stronger than all the 5 senses: it is called Attention.
Right when we were growing addicted to get anything effortlessly. To resolve nearly all needs or encyclopedic questions instantly through e-commerce and AI. Even to relief our ethical concerns from the couch via simply “Following” media-driven activism. Right at that moment, thanks to disruptive limitations causing our lessened control of the world around us – and of what we can get from it or know about it – we recognized how we still have a private world which we CAN control.
A precious body which we want to keep healthy, safe and entertained. A home to take care of with more dedication. We learned that no-one but us and only us will worry about our “bubble” to truly feel comfortable, about our complicated work-life schedule to stay together and make sense. And so, a beautiful urge to improve the layout of our living room or setting up a new training routine may occur. An extra dose of self-help energy may shoot out to do tricks and expand time at planning the day ahead, to break down individual goals and try techniques to achieve them. Call it “common sense”, “survival mode” or “evolutionary pragmatism” – whatever the name, you probably get a tad more of it now.
More specifically, we mean “must” for work as commuters, and “must” for fun as non-mindful vacationers. In fact, forcedly avoiding ALL travels, taught us that some (maybe many?) of these were embarrassingly useless or boring or draining. This made us clearly understand the amount of noise that used to pollute our traveling schedule, and that we can actually cancel anytime. Canceling “noise traveling” will declutter our agenda and free more time to simply be human beings. While cutting the time we feel like machines which restlessly keep moving.
It is like freeing ourselves from the program coding behind the old way of traveling. This means our movements become more spontaneous, leaving us room to ask ourselves questions like “what would I love to do when machines will take over the tedious parts of human activities?”. And if it gets too philosophic, well just use the extra time gained for a rewarding stop at the local SPA today!
Yes, and it is a just the flowing consequence of all points above. How? On one hand, thanks to the absolute ease of finding away-homes (think of Airbnb remote-working-friendly accommodations growing offer) and the more authentic connection we can create with locals anywhere (having shared similar global issues recently). On the other hand, getting accustomed to turn our own home into a sort of planetary hub connection – both virtually through social media AR, and concretely by hosting other fellow travelers or even refugees. A mentality that enables us to switch between “home” and “away” mode seamlessly – ultimately making comfort an embedded feature of ours.
And please keep writing the list with us: what benefits do YOU reckon in the #newwayoftraveling?
