While on vacation, I spent the day with my sisters in a small tourist town filled with boutiques and interesting little stores. At one place, the clerk asked where we were from. When we replied: “Iowa, Minneapolis, and Boston,” she shook her head and told us that she couldn’t understand why people came there since it was “a little town with nothing to do.”
On the same trip, there was a line of cars backed out onto the highway waiting to get into the state park. Again, a local clerk was puzzled by “why people care so much about going to the beach,” something he obviously took for granted from living there.
We see the world through our own lenses, but travel is one way that we can broaden that view. Being immersed in another location, even if it’s just another state for the weekend, can help us realize that not everyone shares the same perspective or values the same thing. People willingly pay hefty sums to visit places that others can’t wait to flee — and both are valid views.
Shake up your world a bit by going somewhere new — whether that be a different neighborhood, state, country, or even to another organization’s place of business. Broaden your appreciation of the world by becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.
