Travel
A Journey of Empathy
It’s shocking that the 3 weeks I took to visit and stay with friends is more vacation than most people get per year (in the USA). When are we to reflect on what’s happening in our lives if not for relaxed time with friends and family? People whom we can trust to be open and vulnerable and reciprocate such things. Our ability to do this has significantly decreased over the years. Due to the increased time demands placed on workers by organizations, as well as the fact that many people don’t live near to family or change jobs/residences often, we are losing something that is critical to our growth and development – a safe space to think and speak openly. Taking time to see friends and family in their “Business as Usual” mode enlightens us to their experience. Often we have glimpses of this through pre-planned vacations and holidays but it is often a momentary reprieve from their true experience – an out of body experience from what is more constant. What do we gain from this time with them in such an environment? We’re often left baffled as to why people behave in certain ways. Why they make certain choices when we believe we would do things differently. For unless we truly understand their existence, past and present, we simply cannot understand the individual or their behavior. If we don’t understand their experience, how can we get along? Cooperate? Strive together towards improvement of not only our own existence, but theirs as well. We have reached this point as a species because we’ve been able to set aside whatever our differences and work together towards something we all care about. Simply put, without shared experiences, there won’t be empathy; without empathy, there will be no cooperation; without cooperation, there will be conflict and little improvement. 
