We decided to head to the beaches of the Dominican Republic for this week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Legs and Feet. It seems to be a pretty common fad these days to take photos with your legs dangling in the foreground of a beautiful landscape shot. We don’t do that normally ourselves, but we did actually take a picture of our feet with the Caribbean Ocean in the background when we were in Punta Cana a little less than two years ago.
Not the greatest of photos, but when visiting the temples in India, you must take your shoes off, so here we are in a temple in Chennai.
We have been fortunate to have had many great mentors throughout our lives who have imparted words of wisdom to us that have molded our thoughts and actions. Most of the best advice that we’ve received apply to all parts of our lives, whether with family, work, or travelling. Usually they are amazingly simple and yet very powerful when applied consistently. With this week’s Discover Challenge – Piece of Advice, we decided not to share a single piece of advice that we’ve received, but instead we’ve listed our top five words of wisdom and specifically how they’ve related to our travels. Hopefully you’ll find them to be as useful over time as we have found them to be.
Treat others as you want to be treated (the golden rule) – Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we treated EVERYONE that we met in the same manner that we hope and expect to be treated. Sure, we learned this rule as children, but it is probably the most important piece of advice that hopefully all people can learn. Whenever we travel someplace, anyplace, we want to learn about the customs and traditions of the locals. We respect their religions, beliefs, and social expectations. Having an understanding and respect does not mean that you have agree with or do things that conflict with your own personal beliefs, but you must have empathy and understand where they are coming from. You would be surprised how much better your experience will be if you are friendly and honestly express your desire to understand the culture of the place that you are visiting.
Make decisions quickly and act upon them – This doesn’t mean that you don’t do your due diligence and get as many facts as possible before making a decision, but too often people become paralyzed by fear of making a mistake or spend so much time thinking about the decision that the opportunity passes them by. We have a lot of military in our family and the motto for an officer on the battlefield is that the only bad decision is no decision, this is surprisingly true of life in general. Will this lead to some mistakes? Sure, but you don’t grow and learn without making a few mistakes. More often than not, just deciding to go someplace and making it happen has led to some of our best experiences. If you wait for all of the stars to align and the moment to be perfect, you’re likely to miss out on some of the best experiences of your life.
Never stop learning – Learning is growth and the moment that you stop learning new and interesting things is the moment that you stop truly living. Obviously it is hard to go through life and not continue to learn new things, but don’t just learn through osmosis, actively seek out and find new things to learn that might interest you. Pick a country that you’ve never heard about and learn as much as you can and then go visit there. Understand the history of a place, what has influenced its culture, the leaders of the past and the regional forces that shape their current beliefs and society. Learn as much of the language as possible and use it when you visit.
Strive for continuous improvement – None of us are perfect and those people who think that they are should be avoided like the plague. In all aspects of life, we periodically seriously reflect on our current state and consider how we can improve in our relationships, work positions, health (mental and physical), as well as our travel goals and expectations. Even during our travels, we will ask ourselves if we’re seeing the most relevant and interesting sights that mean the most to us or are we just following a list from a guidebook? Are we talking to the locals and getting the best advice on places to see and food to eat? We’ll come home from a trip and talk about our experiences and what things we could have done better and use that information on our next trip.
Step out of your comfort zone – It is easy to get complacent and accept the normal routine, whether at work or in your personal life, but some of the most rewarding opportunities come from pushing your limits. That might mean doing an activity that makes you uncomfortable, like zip-lining, parachuting, or just spending the night in a forest. We’re not suggesting that you pursue dangerous activities, but just that you try something that perhaps you’ve never previously considered. It might be going to a country that makes you uncomfortable, but it could be as simple as trying food that you’ve never heard of. Growth comes from new experiences that most likely reset your image of what you’re capable of doing or achieving.
There isn’t anything earth shattering here, just simple concepts that, when followed consistently, will improve your life and our case, our travels as well.
When we were in Chennai, India, several years ago, we had come across a store that sold interesting antiques. One of the most unusual items that we came across were tables that had been made out of antique doors. We came extremely close to purchasing this particular table and, in hind sight, regret not making the purchase. The thought of having to pay for shipping ended up discouraging us from making this unique piece of furniture part of our home decor. Lesson learned, in the future we’re not going to let the logistics and costs of shipping keep us from purchasing something that we truly wanted to purchase. Obviously that wouldn’t happen too often, but there are just times when you find something so special that you just need to bite the bullet and make the decision to get it. Since we didn’t buy, we’ll just have to go back to Chennai someday and see if we can find it again.