Travelers Guide: Perspective

When I was younger, I hated when my parents used to tell me to use a travel guide if I was going to a foreign country. In fact, I still get a little frustrated whenever I travel with my wife’s family (which is often) as they not only have one travel guide, but multiple sources of information for any given destination. I have always been one to fly by the seat of my pants and see what happens. My mindset has always been, “whatever happens, happens and we can deal with it from there.”

I may not recommend this to everyone, but it is still the way I love to travel.

As I have traveled along the road to significance for the past 14 years, there are many things that I have experienced, both good and bad, that I would put in to a travel guide if I were to ever write one for traveling the road to significance. Just as in any journey, feel free to use the guide or go it alone. Either way works as long as you keep the proper destination in mind; a life of significance.

However, even though I hate to admit it, when I am with my in-laws and they pull out the guide, we usually get to where we need to be a lot quicker than if we used my favorite technique, catch as catch can. For example, as I might point aimlessly down the street to a sign on a door that I have never seen before and say “I think we should try this restaurant tonight”, having no idea what awaits us inside the door. My in-laws, on the other hand, will always find the best restaurant, with the best food and the best view in the city. Maybe there is something to these travel guides after all.

Therefore, if you are traveling down the road to significance, I suggest using the hybrid approach. Check the travel guide once in awhile and go it alone whenever it feels right. In the end , the destination is a more fulfilled life, a life of service, a life of abundance.

My first suggestion in my Road To Significance Travel Guide (RSTG) could be summed up in one word:

PERSPECTIVE

I believe that any life well lived, especially a significant life, can only be found in gaining new perspective all the time. I remember when I was young; I had a very narrow perspective. You see I grow up in an Italian family. Now, there is nothing wrong with Italian families. In fact, I had a wonderful family and one that I truly love. But the truth is, I was raised thinking that there was only one perspective and that perspective was the one my dad had and therefore would be the one I would have for the rest of my life.

This is not an assault on my dad’s perspective. Although I have grown to disagree with some of his beliefs, I have also grown to respect and understand the ways he sees the world. But in order to find a significant life, I needed to see the world through many different lenses.

I remember one of the first eye-opening experiences was working on 125th Street in Harlem when I was a 23 year-old recent college graduate. Growing up in an Italian family construction business, we had some slanted views on what was right and wrong with the world. I remember thinking very early on that poor people were poor because they were lazy, uneducated and unwilling to do what it takes to be successful. I had a perspective on poverty that clearly placed all the blame on the poor. If that is your perspective, I would highly recommend spending everyday for 2-years in and around poverty, either in this country or abroad. I can assure you that your perspective will change. It certainly changed mine.

My eyes were opened up to some of the inherent challenges that the marginalized and extremely poor in our country faced each and every day. Whether it was the lack of role models, a poor opportunity for education or a family history that had a path to nowhere baiting you into the same trap. There was institutional racism, there were cultural conflicts and there was outright discrimination. After two years in Harlem, I realized that my perspective on poverty needed to change.

Now don’t get me wrong, I still do believe that each and every one of us has a responsibility for ourselves. We need to get up each day and try to do what is right and make a better life for our families and ourselves. I do not believe that anyone can just sit back and claim that they are owed a better life and that someone, or something, such as the government, needs to provide it. Yet, as your perspective changes and your eyes are opened to the realities of life, you begin to realize that it is not until more people choose to live significant lives, lives that serve and love others well, will the marginalized and poor in our society or our world ever have a fair chance to pickup their torch and make a better life for themselves and their families. It is not up to others to give you a better life, but it is up to all of us to do our best to serve and love one another so each of us have an opportunity to live a significant life.

One of the things that frustrates me the most is that the need to serve and love others well is being left to our government. In some ways, it feels like the government is trying to hi-jack that responsibility. Each time the government sets new policies and new legislation that dictates and demands allocations and subsidies, it takes away the motivation and the opportunity for each and every one of us to live a significant life, to love and serve others well. Any one can argue the famous chicken or egg question here; did we abandon our duties as individuals to care for our communities and our world or did the government determine that only they were capable of “caring for” those in need. No matter what side of the argument you may be on, one thing is for certain, if we as individuals are not given the opportunity or example of self sacrifice and service and we can outsource it to the government, each of us is losing the unique blessing and joy that comes from a life of significance.

The last 14 years of my life, I have ventured around the world and close to home. Each time I walk out the door and every time I land on foreign soil, I enter the day hoping to gain new perspectives. I am always trying to learn from new cultures, new ideas, and new ways of life. I am amazed when I sit with teachers in Rwanda, or families in Mississippi, or when I when I get a chance to talk with a kid from an abusive family or a recovering drug addict, I am able to see the world from a new perspective and I am able to serve the world with a little more grace and a little more understanding.

The one trap that a broader perspective can have is that people begin to believe that there is no right or wrong. That whatever one person believes to be true for them must be accepted as truth and never questioned. We have become a world of no absolutes and deem everything only as a relative truth. I disagree completely with the notion of relative truth. There is only one truth and if you choose to travel on the road to significance, our destination is to understand and recognize the absolute truth. A single perspective does not always point to truth, but the wisdom of a broad perspective and an eagerness to see life through many lenses will begin to bring into focus the absolute truths of our world.

If you are willing to travel the road of significance, you must be willing to engage your life in broadening your perspective. Whether it is by being with people in your community, your country or your world, there is something to learn from everyone and everyone can help formulate your perspective. In the end, one truth that you will come face to face with is that we are created to love and serve each other; we are created to live significant lives.