Come back from a trip and notice what you missed about your life and what you didn’t. Both lists matter.
REFLECTION
WHAT THIS MEANS
Distance changes what you can see about your own life. While you are in it, everything is equally present and nothing stands out. Take yourself out for a week and the sorting happens automatically: a few things pull at you and much of the rest turns out not to be missed at all. Both halves of that are worth knowing.
Write both lists within a day of getting back, before the routine closes over again. The absent list is usually the more useful one, and it is the one that fades fastest.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
What part of your ordinary life did you miss while away?
MORE IN PERCEPTION & ATTENTION
- Knowing yourself is healthy. Rehearsing every conversation twelve times in the shower is just spinning your wheels.
- Pay attention to what makes you look up and realize three hours vanished. That’s a signpost, not a distraction.
- Most great ideas are born in a room with one person in it. The group comes later.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.