“In the end, we need two things to lead a balanced life – a sense of the world and a sense of ourselves; it’s like breathing in and breathing out. And if you can only get to know the world by stepping out, and losing yourself in experience, you can only get to know the self by stepping back, and finding yourself in contemplation. One without the other leads to a kind of madness.”
Pico Iyer
Beyond the Quote (17/365)
I think at some point in our lives we all fantasize about traveling the world and living the life of a nomad. We could wander from one place to the next and fill our days with spontaneous adventures while meeting new and interesting people. We could explore new cities, take beautiful hikes, have campfires in the woods, listen to new music, and read stories from people who have come before. We can hitchhike in cars, catch cross country trains, sleep in the back of busses, and take red-eye flights. Every day would be different and every day would be filled with a wealth of experience that we could easily get lost in. Sounds pretty great right?
One of the main reason why we might have fantasies like this is because we’re hungry for new experiences. New experiences, in any form, are like the sweet oxygen of our lives. This is why you might find yourself getting antsy if you haven’t had a new experience in a while. It’s why we crave vacations after working for so many days in a row, or why we might go out to a new restaurant with friends after a routine week, or why we might crave a year of worldly travel to break free from a routine life. What we’re really craving is that sweet oxygen of new experience.
But before you commit to the nomadic lifestyle, remember that for as long as we’re ‘losing ourselves’ in the experiences of the world, we won’t be ‘finding ourselves’ until we find time to contemplate what those experiences mean and how they might shape who we are and how we might continue to live our lives. In other words, as sweet as a breath of fresh oxygen is, we can’t only breathe oxygen in without first letting carbon dioxide out. And the same is true for us if we want to live a balanced life of optimal self-discovery.
Luckily for us, we don’t even have to think about breathing—it happens autonomously. But ‘breathing’ for a balanced life, however, is something we DO have to think about and take action on consciously. Without our direct oversight and effort, our life can very well end up getting blown around randomly by the winds of life or, even worse, deliberately by the manipulative efforts of others. And if you really want to ‘find yourself’ then YOU need to make plans for new experiences, make space for contemplation, practice the art of applying anything you learn of value, and the art of discarding everything you discover that isn’t. Because one thing is for sure, nobody else is going to breathe for you.
Read Next: 13 Pico Iyer Quotes from The Art of Stillness to Inspire Your Next Trip to… Nowhere?
Don't Let the Motivation Stop There...!
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