My wife and I just completed a 2,326 mile trip by car to celebrate the beginning of her retirement. We traveled through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. We drove a friend’s car out to her condo and later flew home. The contrast in travel styles gave me a chance to pause and reflect about the pace of my life and the ‘richness’ of this experience.
Growing up our family vacations were always about driving. We saw a lot of the United States and Canada. The world seemed like such a big place because of the length of time it took for us to get somewhere. Today, many of our vacations are by air. The world no longer seems so big. Life has become more about arriving than it is the journey. Many of us try to ‘get to the future,’ as though ‘there’ is somehow inherently better than ‘here’ (the present).
Traveling by car allowed us to experience life at a more ‘granular’ level. We drove past every inch of every day. We experienced the variety of people, topography, cuisine, and weather. Maybe those things aren’t important. Maybe taking six hours rather than six days to get somewhere is okay. For most of us, traveling faster allows us to spend more time ‘there’ rather than ‘here.’ I suppose that’s not all bad. But, if we are always trying to get to ‘there,’ what are we doing with our time ‘here?’
Umm. What I rediscovered about my time spent ‘here’ on our trip was several things. One of my favorite topics to speak and write about is how we manage our energy centers (physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual). Renewal of those centers is vital to the quality of our experience and our life. Renewal takes place in the ‘now,’ not the future. Driving helped slow down our experience. We weren’t reflecting about our trip across the United States in a matter of hours. We were reflecting about Beale Street and BB King’s, the flooding of the Mississippi, the ribs, the Monument in Oklahoma City, the vastness of open spaces in the southwest, the White Sands of New Mexico, Route 66, the vast acres of vegetable fields and wheat in Yuma, the campus of University of Arizona, the Sultan Sea, and countless other things that engaged our senses in a way that brought great joy. That included the all we shared together. In essence, we ‘slowed down’ our pace in order to experience life at a different level. We ‘sat’ in our moments like they were gems we were sifting through to decide which were the best. We created space in which to live our lives, in no special order, with no special requirement. We weren’t in a hurry to get to ‘there,’ at least most of the time.
Part of the ‘slowing down’ was an intentional plan of taking time to be ‘here.’ After almost 23 years of marriage, 35 years of working, raising three kids, building a life, it is abundantly clear we are on the ‘back nine.’ We can continue to choose to rush through the experiences of our lives, or we can choose to take time to ‘savor life.’ I think I do a good job of savoring life, but when you know you have less of life to celebrate and to savor, to make contributions, and to make a difference, there is an urgency to hold onto all the best there is to experience. It is the opportunity to renew ourselves and make the ‘back nine’ and extraordinary time of sharing and caring.
Maybe we should drive more and fly less.