Things I learned on a road trip to Esperance

Earlier in my life, the Karratha-Perth road trip was a more-than-annual experience. These past twenty years, however, it’s been the trips south and east of Perth that have been the main fare.

Road trips can be similes for life.

I’m sure you’ve all heard things like, ‘life is not in the destination but the journey…’

This is like that.

My earlier road trips of 1,500 kilometres and more were races in trying to get to the destination as quickly as possible. Not that I had a death-wish, but I really wasn’t focused on the journey at all. I had done that trips in a little over 13 hours, and, in a police pursuit-patrol car, in 12 hours, twice!

Having passed 50, and with a greater appreciation than ever of the meaning and significance of life, I enjoyed every minute of the 1,430-kilometre round trip. I wasn’t focused on the destination at all, both ways. I subconsciously knew we’d arrive there. I enjoyed this round trip so much that I didn’t need a break from the driving. We had Colin Buchanan CDs to play and occasionally we would tune into the cricket. We chatted as we went, planning what we would do when we got to our holiday destination, and on the way home we planned our upcoming Wedding Anniversary, my wife’s birthday, and talked through our next month. We also visited best friends in a town on the way home.

Our mode of travel was car and our trip wasn’t driven by haste to get where we weren’t.

This trip was revelatory to me in that it wasn’t drudgery. It was enjoyment.

Life’s like that. We hustle through life until we reach our holidays and then we’re in no fit state of mind to enjoy our time off. We save all our joy for Saturday and Sunday and miss the joys every Monday-to-Friday period bring. This is such a shame and a waste of most of our lives.

We must learn to value the journey of our life; the destination is death, and there is no sense rushing there.

What is life if we cannot enjoy it? And I challenge anyone who does not enjoy the abundance of life. If you don’t enjoy your life, do all you can to change it so as much of it can be enjoyed as possible.

My last thought: enjoyment of life is a paradigm, that’s all. It’s a mindset. We all have the power to choose our approach.