Don't date someone who travels

There's been a lot of these floating around lately so I thought that I would just add to the noise...

DON'T DATE SOMEONE WHO TRAVELS for they are clearly not career focussed and know more about life and culture than they do about conformist slavery and mortgages.

They can’t be relied upon for funding those weekend trips to malls to buy things you don’t even need to impress people you don’t even like.

Don’t date someone who travels because they are good with budgeting and otherwise termed ‘cheapskates’. They know that a typical $80 dinner for two equates to a week of accommodation in India or three days worth of royal treatment and adventure activities in Central America or Asia.

Don’t date someone who travels because you will never be able to impress them with your belongings, work achievements or general bragging. They don’t care about your favourite soaps and dramas, the current reality television craze or the facts that your coffee mugs match your coasters.

Don’t date someone who travels because their life focus is completely different to yours.  They will most likely be focussed on experiences and memories that they feel no need to tell anyone about. There are too many and you will likely never be able to relate. They have given up because all their stories have been met with blank expressions or jealousy and conversations that have been steered towards episodes of ‘The voice’ , ‘The Biggest Loser’, or ‘Xxx Idol’. Such conversations send them looking for the first plane to the other end of the earth.

Don’t date someone who travels because they are extremely selfish. They care only about themselves and want to understand the world. They leave their homes, country and culture looking for hope and meaning because they seek a universal truth.

Don’t date someone who travels because they have spent their lives getting to know their own humanity. They look at life the way someone looks at the stars - it is infinite, a journey never-ending. They have become so caught up in this that the conventional life has little meaning. It seems irrational, a predictable and costly repetition. They have found more exciting alternatives.

Don’t date someone who travels because they will piss you off. They will turn you upside down and empty all of the contents. They will ruin you and everything that you believe in. They will force you to face your fears and encourage you to expand the limits of your personal boundaries. They will look you in the eyes and ask questions that only you can answer.

They will spend a bulk of their free time researching the feasibility of climbing peaks in Kyrgyzstan or overlanding through West Africa.

They are unpredictable and spontaneous.

They are a combination of capitalism, communism and subsistence farming hippies.

They have the ability to embrace standard muesli and milk like it is the nectar of kings.

They look at 5 star hotels and yawn, calculating the price of every fake smile.

Don’t date someone who travels because you know it already. You know it all. There is no life with them. They are a flash in the pan. They will struggle when it comes to raising a family. They will struggle when it comes to retirement. They will end up nothing but glorious memories with nothing to their name. They will embrace their share of oxygen to the very end. 

Is this your view of someone who travels? Are they unreliable? Undependable? Beggars asking for one more chance to dream?

Do they live in a fantasy land in which the real world never meets, or do they embrace the world for what it really is?

Good. Find someone just like you. Build a picket fence around all that you strive for and cast your photos into the annals of history.

One day you will probably look a traveller eye to eye and you will both scratch your head. You will be caught at odds and both ask the same question: “What will you do with your life?” One answer will be obvious and the other will remain an unfolding mystery.

Don’t date a traveller because they are self important, egotistic and arrogant. They will look upon the life that you want to live and have the cheek that they can do it better.

Don’t date a traveller because they aim at turning the mundane into the remarkable. They are lost to the world, but in themselves they are found.

And they want the same for you.

What is your life mission?

  

What is your life mission? If you could put it in a sentence what would you write? Have you even given it a good amount of thought? Do you believe that there is a purpose in life and that you have a meaningful and pivotal role to play?

It's not an easy question to answer because it beckons your views and beliefs about existence. Why are we here? What are we doing? Where are we going? What is important, sacred, and what do we hold dear?

For most people it is likely a question that gives rise to so many more questions but how insane would it be to not ponder and ask questions about one's own life?

Such questions have come up a lot on my travels. When asked what a person's aims and goals in life are a large proportion will answer with something like "to live life with no regrets" or, "to be the best that I can be."

They seem content with such answers and don't give it much thought beyond that. But such statements have no foundation. They are like voices thrown into the wind, fading and taken in any direction. What is 'the best that one can be'? And how does one go about achieving that? I'm also uneasy with the saying 'live life with no regrets.' Isn't it more accurate to say : Make mistakes but learn how to live with the scars?

Surely we can do better.

It seems not much is sacred in this day and age. Technology has given proliferation to information, opinion and choice and post modernism has promoted an unbridled pursuit of pleasure. We are in the habit of living for the 'now' and giving in to the immediate but where will it take us?

What is your life mission? Is it to live the good life? Is it to pursue pleasure in all its forms and fulfill your every desire in the trust that that will bring personal fulfillment and happiness? Would it create a more harmonious world, to give in to each flutter of the heart? Is this what it means to be true to oneself?

I seek pleasure in my life but I believe that there are pure pleasures and illicit pleasures. Pleasure always has a cost. You either pay for it before or you pay for it after. Pure pleasures are often at the cost of patience, diligence, trust, and perseverance. You pay for them in advance. Illicit pleasures are those that cause harm or have impact on yourself or someone else somewhere down the line. Without guidance or a moral code or truth, pleasure is a problem.

Where do you think pleasure comes from? Is it merely a reaction of chemicals confined to the body or does it transcend into the mysteries of the soul?

As a great and wealthy king once wrote with his kingdom at the height of it's glory;

"I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
    I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
    and this was the reward for all my toil.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
    and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
    nothing was gained under the sun."*

There has to be a foundation. There has to be something solid that dictates what is truly beautiful, pure and meaningful and what is not. There must be truth.

With post modernism and relativism I feel that we are drowning in a sea of triviality. There is no longer a black and white. Truth has become a relative term and has therefore become undefinable. There are no longer boundaries and therefore there is no longer substance. We are each kings of our little kingdoms toiling under the sun.

What is your life mission?

I fear that the world today doesn't ask the question. We are walking blind, chasing sensual pleasures in a hope to find meaning but we are getting more and more lost. An endless chasing of the wind.

What is your life mission? What does your heart and soul really long for?

It's not an easy question to answer but what are we if we don't give it serious thought.

*quotation is from the book of Ecclesiastes 2: 4-16.

Gandhi was asked to describe in twenty-five words or less
what his life mission was...
.  

He said, "I could do it in three: Renounce and enjoy."  

You renounce all worldly attachment to everything
and enjoy what God gives you.  

You give away what you have inside yourself, your love.  

You're not concerned with whether it worked or didn't work,
whether it was right or wrong,
whether you won or lost.  

You just constantly flow through your life  

without getting attached to the results.  

The irony is that the less attached you are,
the more you get.  

The more you keep circulating,  

the more keeps coming back to you.
It's a flowing system.

  


^{Matt 22: 36-39}
 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."