The Ironic Envy : What Traveling Has Taught Me About Values

What Traveling Has Taught Me About (My) Values.

I enjoy traveling. As I think many of us do. We can feel free to be our true authentic selves, not worrying about calorie intake or emails. It’s a feeling of release and ease.

I recently traveled to the West Indies with my adorable husband. We weren’t exactly sure what to expect, but we knew we were up for an adventure.

The moment we arrived, our exhaustion from the full day of travel instantly deteriorated. We immediately felt excited, thankful, and oddly, at home. We struck up a conversation with our lovely taxi driver, Lambert. He was naturally genuine and real, and we felt he was truly interested in teaching us about their community. As he drove through the windy roads, honking at 90% of the cars that passed or the people walking by, he stops in mid sentence to explain, “We honk to say ‘hi’ to our friends here. Not for any other reason, just want you to know, we don’t use our horns in the same way most do.” We laughed, but then I had an immediate flashback from the previous week. While on my way to work, I got honked at by the impatient person behind me, when I didn’t notice (within the millisecond) the light turning green, I’m pretty sure I saw a finger, too. I thought to myself, “Hmm… definitely not the same usage where we come from!” He told us about the political election that was coming up, the drug issues that were unfortunately common in the area; he even told us about his personal life. So real. So open. For the 30 minute taxi ride, we felt as though we experienced more than just transportation, rather we made a true friend. 

We always knew there was something about the American culture that did not necessarily speak to us, but we weren’t exactly sure what that meant. We started figuring it out as the trip continued to expose our inner values and we began to connect the dots of what our passions really are. I started to grasp how much “power,” social status and cultural norms impact our society. I started to truly realize how much people everywhere suffer, yet, when we are, we tend to build defenses around us rather then reach out to community, family, or friends. This was opposite of how I perceived the natives and they embodied this message of peace, kindness, and support. I learned from a few natives, that they were envious of our American rights and opportunities. This makes sense… as their government hasn’t always had their economy’s best interest in mind.

At the same time they expressed this, it also made me feel as though the things they envy about us, are ironically the same things that prevent us from genuinely connecting and often times, feeling truly fulfilled.

Generally speaking, we have the rights to opportunity that many don’t have; we can go to university, start businesses, make investments, etc. In comparison, we have the resources available to us to be financially successful, to save money, to buy expensive stuff.

We (as Americans) seemingly crave success, and ultimately demand respect and positive reinforcement, yet ironically, we rarely know how to genuinely give it due to our insecurities.

My clients often come to me saying, “You know Alysha, I am extremely successful in my career, I make great money and can afford to live in luxury. I did what I was supposed to do; I got an education, scored a fancy job, got married, had children. I even have a golden retriever named, Max. But… There is something inside of me that feels untouched. I don’t feel truly fulfilled with my life. How can my life on paper be the ideal American Dream, yet make me feel so empty?”

I know I have experienced the pressures of our culture, “make more money, climb up the corporate ladder to succeed, make your parents or boss proud, save save save for retirement, buy fancy clothes, get a new car, buy a house, save save save, get expensive stuff, be responsible, buy fancy new gadgets, save save save, buy buy buy buy, make more money, gotta be successful.”

I feel as though it truly never stops! We operate on an implicit foundation that encourages us to focus on material possessions and economic status/“success” rather than focusing on being real, connected and vulnerable with others in our life. We generally don’t let many people in; we don’t know how to trust. We constantly feel criticized and in fear of judgement, so we close off to people and only expose our fancy, successful exteriors to each other. This is a lot safer.

But isn’t feeling understood and safe with others, what makes us feel truly alive? It seems really counter intuitive if you look at it objectively.

Ironically, the same (kind) envy that some of my new friends expressed having toward me and other tourists, is the same thing that has caused many of us Americans to lose sight of being humble and loving toward each other. At the same time, the (kind) envy I have toward them is their innate friendliness and respect to their neighbors, their families, their friends. No judgements, no hate or disrespect… just love. They choose love in times of tragedy and oppression, they choose love in times of peace and harmony…

I think we have a lot to learn from “less privileged” countries.

Couples often come in to my office and express, “I just want to connect more, I truly miss my partner. I want more time to be spent together but I am ‘nagging and pushy’ when I ask for it or I am told my expectations are too high.” While the other partner expresses, “I have to work to provide for our family, to afford our lifestyle. There’s not a lot of time in the day for ‘connecting’ and romance.” I understand how this can truly become an issue, because it is easy to fall victim of our social trap of expectations and perceived values.

However, let’s think about this for a moment in very objective way. Generally speaking:

We live to work as our culture has implied that we do. This often leaves little to no energy/time to truly connect with the closest ones in our life. We make this sacrifice, only to provide the financial security and/or maintain the privileged lifestyle, but then we may find ourselves struggling with connecting with others in a profound way. This ironically, makes our luxury lifestyle meaningless.

In a way, if we value achieving and maintaing a financially rewarding lifestyle over having fulfilling relationships, it will in essence perpetuate our insecurities… which only promote discrimination and defensiveness; it will create defenses, which only cause alienation and loneliness; and it will sustain a lack of fulfillment in our lives.

(**I am not trying to convey that this is a dichotomy and you cannot have both, rather trying to share my experience and shed awareness of the generalization of what we tend to experience in our culture**)

Traveling to this exotic, gorgeous island, reminded me how to love others in the way I always instinctually felt was there, but wasn’t able to always express in our culture, in fear of being criticized by my peers.

The relationships my husband and I made and the relationships we witnessed, showed me how to love myself, even with my own superficial insecurities. It showed me how to feel and show respect, to myself and to others. It touched me in a way that was extremely
humbling and genuinely comforted my soul. Experiencing the natural love between the natives reassured me to feel authentically free and natural. It made me realize us humans are really all the same, but the complexities of power, wealth, success, insecurities and disrespect, often come between us from connecting and feeling safe.

I came home and naturally fell back into the infamous American “daily grind,” but only to feel more fulfilled and grateful for all that I have and all that I am. Although it could be easy to forget the impact the natives had on me, I can feel myself making the necessary shifts to being more patient, less stressed, more loving to strangers and people I don’t normally reach out to; I feel more enriched with the connections I have and more grateful for my accomplishments and abilities. I pride on the idea of having love and friendliness be a part of my life on a daily basis and am an actively refocusing my energy on that over setting financial goals that only steer me away from being humble and grateful.

I will always be excited and grateful for my traveling experiences, and I will always take something authentically significant from the relationships I make during my experiences. It’ll always be more than just a vacation for me and I truly appreciate the lessons I learned from my recent traveling experience to the West Indies.