Leadership

The Art of Travel By Alain de Botton: Reading and Meditation

November 14, 2020  • Executive Leadership Seminars Department

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Meditation

I have two selves. Well, perhaps there are more than two, but the two selves I am most familiar with are my home self and my traveling self. My traveling self is my favorite – she’s adventurous and giddy, easily impressed and go-with-the-flow. My home self is a planner, type A with high expectations that are seldom met and heavily dependent on routine – and none of this has been helped along by sheltering in place. 

Alain de Botton’s assurance that “it is not necessarily at home that we encounter our true selves” deeply comforts me. The ease, habits, and confinement of the ordinary, rooted world are certainly the settings in which we find ourselves more often, and that is certainly so these days. So how might we connect with our traveling selves more often? How can you venture out to stimulate the only kind of thought that comes with experiencing the flow new landscapes? In times when travel is less prominent in our lives, how can you bring the sense of adventure to you? How can you fall in love with all versions of yourself, despite your setting?

Brianna Curran, Washington DC

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