By Scott Reddoch
A Rushed Arrival
The taxi sped to the unloading zone. They barely came to a complete stop and the cab’s doors opened to a young couple sprinting to the terminal’s entrance. Their carry on only style of travel allowed them to run past the ticketing counter saving them precious time.
A surprisingly fast TSA line let them get to the gate for the final boarding call. They just barely made it.
Missing the View
Once in the air the couple both entertained themselves with endless social media feeds, only stopping when asked for the plane’s descent. After the plane landed they began rushing again, they weren’t late for anything, they just wanted to get to the hotel.
The woman had visited this place many times for business but it was the first time for the man. In a taxi again they both checked in on social media and went to their feeds. After a 25 minute cab ride, the driver announced that they were at the end of their fare.
Barely looking away from her phone the woman paid him.
Unnoticed Details
The next day, the couple walked to a nearby cafe for breakfast. Gary stopped mid-stride, his attention caught by an ornate building across the street. The morning light illuminated intricate terra cotta details above the second-story windows, scrollwork and floral patterns that someone had carefully crafted over a century ago. Decorative cornices crowned each corner with geometric precision.
“Was this here yesterday, why didn’t you tell me about it?” Gary asked, genuinely amazed. He loved old architecture, the craftsmanship, the attention to detail, the way builders once took pride in even the parts of buildings most people would never look at closely.
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen it before.” The woman replied, barely glancing up. “It’s just some old store.” She added as they walked down the street.
Gary lingered a moment longer, wondering what other architectural treasures lined the route.
Just Another Weekend
Once back at the office, Gary’s coworker asked “How was Memphis?”
He responded “The hotel was nice,” and that he found a good restaurant there. His long weekend out of town wasn’t much different than any other weekend. The highlight of the trip being a day off of work.
Recognizing Myself in Gary
How many of us have had a vacation similar to Gary’s? I know that I have. In my case, I let things distract me from my surroundings, not grasping the important parts of my journey.
Like Gary, I missed things that would have made my trip much better. I didn’t want to be the person who would only notice the hotel or restaurant in my travels, but I was that guy.
The Curiosity I Once Had
It wasn’t always like this for me. As a child I noticed a lot about a new place. I would see all of the shops, the terrain, and could even tell you what the air was like.
Maybe it was a form of survival, witnessing the world in great detail and having a curiosity about what’s behind every turn. I didn’t have many distractions then.
Through my adult years I lost that curiosity about things, I no longer appreciated novelty and instead favored plain, boring, or familiar.
The Gradual Loss
Looking back, this probably started to develop much earlier than my adulthood. I believe that I started losing curiosity gradually, from my elementary school years.
Further education reinforced it and I began gravitating to the familiar, known approaches. Throw in a career, the internet, and smart phones and eventually I killed any trace of curiosity that I had left.
The Cost of Constant Connection
We are living in a world where technology is advancing at a rapid pace. Never before have we seen such an efficient and informed society. My attention is constantly being competed for every waking moment of my day.
Unfortunately, my brain and most human brains are not advancing as quickly. We don’t watch the negative effects, just the positive ones.
Making Time Matter
This brings me to a bigger question. It has been said that we all get the same amount of time. Everyone has the time to travel from cradle to grave, trips are unique but, they start at the same point.
With that in mind, I ask myself what I’m doing with my time. We all die, nature is a very efficient operation, but am I making an impact that matters? I try to but I have traded my curiosity of life for an existence that compares itself to the other existences.
Choosing to Live
I want to live, not just exist. I began searching for how others have found lives worth living.
The Steps Along the Way
One of my first discoveries is that I completely missed the whole goal setting class. But I do know that each step toward the goal is a moment to be experienced, and not treated as just a step toward the goal.
I believe that we should always have goals, but remember that achievement lies in making the right steps. For me, the journey is more important than the destination.
I think about Gary sometimes, standing on that Memphis street corner, finally seeing what had been there all along. He had the architecture he loved right in front of him, but he almost missed it completely.
Did that moment change anything for him, or did he go back to his phone on the ride to the airport? I hope he looked up. I hope he saw the buildings, the people, the life happening around him.
Because that’s what I’m trying to do now: to see what’s actually in front of me before it becomes just another place I visited but never really experienced. The question is will you see the details in your life or will it simply pass you by?
