3 of My Core Values When Traveling
Here are 3 of the Core Values I have when traveling:
#1 – Going Slow
Often times–especially if we’re Americans–we have just a few short weeks or less for a vacation, and we want to pack as much as fun and excitement as we can into that brief time. So we tend to travel with a feeling of a scarcity of time. This can have us focused in on ourselves and focused on getting–getting as much experiences and as many photos as we can in that short amount of time.
One of the things I am going to show you how to do, if you come and travel with me or if you take my Carpe Diem! World Traveler LINK course, is how to get more time for longer journeys and sabbaticals.
When you come and travel with me, it’s a requirement that we’re not in that scarcity mode. We’re not in that mode of taking and trying to just get as much as possible from the short time that we have.
There’s something that’s really magical that happens as we just trust the journey, take our time to go slow, to connect with what we’re feeling, notice who our heart is calling us to connect with, take the time to build relationships and being open to the invitations that we receive along the way.
This is one of the most miraculous things that’s happened to me on my travels. I don’t plan most of my own travels. Instead, I go slow, stay connected and follow heart-felt invitations. That’s something we’ll be doing if you come and travel with me.
I require that we’re not in that rushed state of mind. Now, it’s OK if we start feeling this scarcity of time as we travel, and I’ll just bring reminders for us to slow down and trust.
So if you’re interested in a change of pace and slowing down, de-stressing and learning to travel and live in this kind of a way, then maybe you’ll want to come and travel with me.
And if not–if you want to cram as much as you can into your short vacation time as possible–then there are probably some better options or tourist packages that are better for you.
#2 – Respect
Many times in American culture, respect is lacking in our interactions. Partly this is from our value of independence and individuality. We want to be self-expressed and speak up for ourselves, but often that comes at the price of respect for other people.
A lot of times when we pay someone money, we feel that “customer is king” and they need to give us what we paid for and if they don’t, maybe we’ll raise hell. That doesn’t go over so well in many parts of the world, especially in places like Thailand. They, as a culture in general, tend to value respect more than we do.
And it’s important to me when I travel to leave my old cultural assumptions behind, leave my expectations of how things should be or shouldn’t be behind. And really get curious about this new culture and this new people. What’s the beauty and the gift in how they live and how they move?
Here in Thailand when you pay someone money for something, the first thing they are going to do before even putting your money away, is bow with their hands in a prayer gesture and say, “Thank you,” in their local language.
There’s a sacredness to exchanging money here, whereas in many Western cultures, money can kind of give us a license to just treat the other person as a part of a transaction or even like an object. We have a lot of expectations and assumptions that go along with that.
These are the kinds of things we’ll be talking about as we travel, so if you’re interested in learning new ways of being with money, new ways of interacting in new cultures, looking for their gift and receiving it, this is something I love to talk about and share about.
So if this is of interest to you, then maybe you’ll want to come travel with me. If it’s not of interest to you, then I’m not the guy to journey with, because this is very important to me.
#3 – A Sense of Humility and Openness
This is related to #1 and #2. It’s about leaving behind our expectations and our need to be in control, and just opening to the gift and the wisdom of other people and other cultures. Trying instead to be in a place of not knowing. A lot of times when we come to another culture, there’s a lot we want to learn. We want to go to museums, we want to learn a language….
And yet one of the most transformational aspects of travel is when we just come to that place of wonder and not knowing and making ourselves humble. That’s when amazing learning and unlearning can happen.
If this is of interest to you, then listen to your heart and consider coming to travel with me. If these are not of interest to you, it’s great that we both know that, and we can choose to travel separately.
I’d love to meet you out here in the unknown. I welcome you to get connected and let’s create some magic together!
Michael Skye
