Dr. Carolyn Lee reflects on a different cliché each week. Recently, in her blog “Break a Leg,” she looks at our need for attention. This week Carolyn explores the cliché, are we there yet?
Learn more about Dr. Carolyn Lee on her biography page or investigate 29 more clichés in her latest book, Keep Your Eye on the Ball And Other Clichès to Live By.
Are We There Yet?
“Are we there yet?,” we would ask our poor parents as we drove from St. Louis to Los Angeles. “How many more minutes?” It seems we were very interested in being somewhere, but getting there was tedious and tiresome. My attitude has improved noticeably over the many years that have elapsed since that family road trip. I still love arriving at my destination and being there, but I have learned that the journey toward that destination is an important part of the experience.
As I write this, I am reflecting on just having spent about twenty hours on the road. Is it me or is being “on the road” not what it used to be? Are there really sixty per cent more automobiles and ninety per cent more eighteen-wheelers out there than there once were? Are the drivers of those vehicles significantly more bonkers than in days gone by? Are traffic lights and speed limits and yield signs being disregarded in new and creative ways? It would have been so easy today to allow the irritating and annoying aspects of highway travel to cast serious shade on our road trip. But what a shame it would have been for us to get so exasperated that we’d fail to appreciate the “Country Boy Breakfast” at Cracker Barrel or the deep-fried entrée at the Catfish Café, or our first look at the Great Smoky Mountains, or the splendor of the marshlands and tidal creeks of South Carolina’s Low Country. Winston Churchill went so far as to say, “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog.” I can boast that we never threw a stone. Well, maybe that once.
We’re often reminded that life is about the journey, not the destination. We are encouraged to place more importance upon the going and the moving forward than the arriving. Years ago, when my nephew, Logan, was about five years old, my sister and I took him to a county fair. This fair had a surprisingly colorful and ornate merry-go-round. Logan was excited as we placed him on a brightly-painted steed. We situated ourselves at the gate, so we could get a good look at him enjoying this experience as he passed in front of us. The merry-go-round groaned to a start and began its revolutions. As Logan approached us his first time around, he leaned from his saddle and yelled, “What’s next?” He came around again, and the same thing happened. “What’s next?” he yelled. With every single revolution, he leaned forward and inquired about our future plans. I considered counseling him, telling him to enjoy the present, the here and now, but apparently that was a lesson he was going to have to learn for himself.
I am particularly committed to staying in the moment and appreciating the present when I travel. The last thing I want to do after returning home from a wonderful trip is to realize that I have failed to experience it fully. I don’t want to wind up a travel adventure by wishing I had looked harder, observed more, paid more attention. In 1963, my sister and I made our first trip to Europe. We didn’t want to miss a thing; we didn’t want any of that experience to get by us unnoticed. Early in our itinerary, we began a routine which we repeated over and over again as we made our way along the Grand Circle from Edinburgh to Rome to Barcelona to Paris. Almost daily, without warning, one of us would say to the other, “Where are you?” The answer might be, “I’m in the back of a big black taxi, on my way to see Oliver in London’s West End”. “Wow!,” we would both say, astonished by our circumstances. “Where are you?” “I’m sitting on top of a hill above Innsbruck, Austria, having a picnic of hard rolls and sausage while watching a farmer pitch hay into a wagon.” “You’re kidding!,” we would say, and marvel at our good fortune.
Staying in the moment—and fully appreciating it—requires conscious effort. On a recent trip to Kenya, I had to remind myself daily—“This is not a photograph or a poster or a postcard. This is not a zoo. This is not a page out of National Geographic. This is the real thing. See it. Realize it. Feel it.”
My nephew Logan is twenty-three years old now. I’d love to take him to a county fair. I’d treat him to a ride on the merry-go-round. And I know for sure that he’d enjoy it more than he did when he was five. He’d get into the whole carnival ambience. He’d probably look up “History of the Carousel” on Google. He’d appreciate the colors, the movement and especially the music of this mechanical roundabout. And he wouldn’t care a bit about what was next.
Want to Read More?
Check out Dr. Carolyn Lee’s blogs on her website, she features a new cliché each week or you can order her new book, Keep Your Eye on the Ball And Other Clichès to Live By. Want to know more about the woman behind the words? Read more about Carolyn here. We hope you enjoyed this article learning more about the cliché, are we there yet?
