No Destination In Mind

The best trips ever are the ones with no destination in mind. When I was a teenager, my friends and I would drive around and try to get lost. We knew we could find our way home, eventually, but our goal was to see if we could take the gravel roads to places unfamiliar, learning and discovering along the way. I often joke that my first time by where my home sits now was on one of these no-destination trips.

When our boys were young, we would do the same thing. For a few years, when we were strapped for cash to do much entertaining, we would hop in the car and just drive. Jeff was always watching for wildlife, but I just liked to idea that around each bend there was something new to discover.

And that is the cool thing about no destination in mind: it leaves us open for a new discovery.

Today, we all seem to have a set destination, and our goal is to get there at a precise time. And if we are running late, we fret. If we are early, we have to come up with an idea to fill our time. If we are on time, we congratulate ourselves with a sigh of relief. But with each destination goal, we are often not aware that we are holding our breath until we get there.

However, if we set a destination, but take away the time factor, allowing ourselves enough time to meander on our way, we can release our breath and just enjoy the discovery of each moment. This is hard to do, because our busy brains lock us into a schedule for the better part of our day. So perhaps we just set aside a couple hours each day for some meandering time: a walk, a bike ride, a drive in the car.

Maybe we find this time at the end of the day to meander. In the summer time, with the later sunlit days, the outdoors are a good place to meander. But inside the house during the winter, perhaps we just turn off our television programs and turn on some music. Walk around the house and see what draws your attention, and then give it your full attention. Maybe we dance in the kitchen. Maybe it is a book we had put down a few weeks earlier. Perhaps it is a project that catches our attention, like a shelf that needs to be organized. Allow ourselves some time to just meander throughout the house, no destination or goal in mind.

I like to think about it like unwinding the knitting ball of yarn. All day long, we continue to roll the yarn onto the ball. At the end of the day, we might just allow some of the yarn to unravel off the knitting ball. No expectations, as we just start pulling the yarn loose, bringing our attention to the yarn, and not the ball.

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