“I can’t learn the piano. It will take 5 years before I’m any good.”  “I can’t learn French. It will take 5 years before I’ll be able to speak it well.”

Well, as they say, 5 years will pass, and at the end of it you’ll either be able to play the piano or speak French, or you won’t. But the time will pass either way. You’ve got to spend the time somehow.

Similarly, you’ve got to spend the time somewhere.

Tanya and I like to travel, but we don’t do a lot of “tourist stuff”. After a trip friends will ask if we went to Museum A, or saw the incredible Ruins of B. Or they will tell us about the 297 mosques they visited so they could see all the varieties of decorative patterns.

It’s easy to feel some guilt or shame when we admit that we didn’t go to Museum A or see the Ruins of B or look at any mosques.

So I remind myself that we are just living according to one of my philosophies of life: “You’ve Got To Be Somewhere.”

What that means is we are living ordinary life, just in different places, in different Somewheres. We are not on a 2 week vacation where we want to do or see as much as possible before heading back to work.

It’s not that we have an aversion to going to A or seeing B or looking at mosques, and if a place appeals to us we’ll go. But we don’t try to maximize our experiences⁽¹⁾. We are just living our ordinary lives, passing time, and choosing to do it in different Somewheres.

Notes

(1) We are generally satisficers. If we’ve gone somewhere for a specific purpose then we (or at least I) will act like a maximizer. For example when we visited St. Jean de Maurienne we went there specifically to ride all the big mountain passes made famous by the Tour de France and wanted to maximize that experience.

Links and Other Clicks

Article about Maximizers and Satisficers (possible paywall)

Article about Maximizers and Satisficers

Earl Nightingale quote about time passing.