One of the more instructive experiences of my life occurred when was when I was a teenager, barely sixteen years old. My dad, whom I had previously considered to be incredibly over-protective, put me on a cross-country bus and sent me, alone, to visit my grandmother, some two thousand miles away. For two straight days I was on my own, surrounded by people I had never met, in places Id never been, and thrown into situations that I could never have expected. The experience did something to me: I learned about a strange world and how to get along in it, alone, with no one to run to. The benefits I felt from this trip didnt have to do with traveling. This wasnt about getting from point A to point B this was about wandering through the unknown. And that was an idea that rather bothered me. During my youth, there was a common idea that moving around was a bad thing. You were supposed to stay in your place unless you had a good reason to do otherwise. People who moved around were considered suspicious and even dangerous. The benefit that I felt from wandering clashed with what I had been taught. When I returned home from this journey, I returned to the regular American distractions of sports, school, and all the other shiny objects that grab at young peoples minds. But I never forgot the strange feeling that stuck with me from that journey. Sometime later, I came across a passage in Shakespeares Two Gentlemen of Verona: I rather would entreat you to see the wonders of the world abroad, than, living dully, sluggardized at home, wear out your youth in shapeless idleness.
That wasnt precisely what I had felt on my adventure, but it was close. It would be some years before I would travel seriously, but I decided right then and there that I would make it my lifes goal to see the world. That experience, which Ive come to call The Strangest Secret, is not unlike Earl Nightingales message of the same name. Both concepts lead to a rich and fulfilling life.
women of history have in common, you might want to examine it, regardless of how it makes you feel. None of us lives entirely by ourselves (nor should we), but living with others inevitably leads to a web of expectations imposed upon us, a web that quickly engulfs every aspect of our lives. These people arent necessarily doing anything wrong; this is simply what happens among groups of people: they learn to expect things of you, and you learn to expect things of them. But this web of expectations also locks us in place, and because of it, we too-easily come to see ourselves as playing a certain type of role in life. And this is what the great men and women broke out of. Do you remember how many times Jesus criticized people for being hypocrites? What he really called these people was actors as in playing a role on a stage. Separation frees us from the roles weve grown accustomed to. By running away, you strip off the accumulations of your lifetime and find yourself underneath.
Maybe the idea of running away still troubles you. If so, that will be your issue to work through I cant do it for you and I wouldnt try. All I am telling you is that there is something very important here, something of pivotal importance to the best men and women of history. What you do with it is your choice. What places do you want to see in your lifetime? Paul Rosenberg FreemansPerspective.com