Elephant Journal readers have by now likely heard the phrase “wherever you go, there you are”. There’s a lot of debate about the origins of the phrase, but based on some quick Googling, it seems to have originated in Alcoholics Anonymous as one of their regular inspirational quotes.

As an individual who sits squarely in the older end of the Millennial generation spectrum, we (Millennials) are known for our preference for consuming experiences instead of owning things— as part of the many things people describe as very millennial (either in a good or bad light). I will admit that I have bought into that desire to consume the hell out of experiences, namely in the form of travel.

I want to mention that it is not my intention to paint all millennials who love consuming experiences with the same broad brush. I see travel being sold as “transformative, life-changing, escapes” where you come back spiritually reset. I simply strongly believe that I think we should diversify our self-development portfolio and not put all of our eggs in one basket.

Jason Silva, a fellow millennial who is thought of as a modern day Timothy Leary, describes the mind expanding benefits of travel amazingly in this video. I really enjoy watching Jason’s videos because I can tell he’s in flow, with an amazing download of perfect thoughts and words streaming through and then out of him– and I find the whole flow state topic fascinating.

“Experience is the new faith, and we are refugees from the mundane.” – Jason Silva

I have to say that– given a healthy, grateful, present, and peaceful mindset– I agree that consuming experiences can be expansive and invaluable. I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunities I’ve had (and continue to have) to travel to amazing destinations for work, and also for personal vacations.

However, I will also have to say that, if I’m going through emotional turbulence that has been present at such a chronic level that my baseline level of contentedness is more like a sense of heaviness and frequent spiritual bypassing, no matter where I am, I will still feel that way and have blockers in my enjoyment and the ability to be present. There will be little to no “refuge from the mundane”, and reduced value in the experiences I’ve decided to invest in, rather than investing in the market, saving in general, or just plain buying stuff.

Although, it is interesting to take a closer look at the quote “Experience is the new faith, and we are refugees from the mundane”. Refugees escape situations. What situations are we escaping from? A chronic, low-level baseline of self-inflicted suffering?

My opinion is that we can easily interchange the notion of consuming experiences to frequent address changes, job changes, romantic partner changes, frequent changes in our circles of friends, and perhaps a general sense of dissatisfaction with almost everything. Because wherever you go, there you are. The instant gratification of the experience, new job, moving to a different city, and having new friends might fade away as quickly as it came– almost like the Hedonic treadmill theory, but not quite. What I’m referring to is creating a reality for ourselves where we don’t feel the need to be a refugee. This takes a lot of inner work, and anybody who has done inner work knows that it’s hard work that usually takes years to raise our mental, emotional and spiritual consciousness to a healthy, peaceful and contented baseline.

Having said that, perhaps travel, job changes, address changes, partner changes and other changes that jolt us out of our comfort zone can all collectively help us in our self-development journey. Being exposed to new environments and new situations forces our brains to process data differently, and think more laterally to turbo-boost our self-development to become more wise, and to be more benefit to ourselves and others.

However, I also think that there are opportunities in our day-to-day lives where we can pause, reflect, observe, and learn from almost any situation and any emotions that surface in our own awareness. The daily opportunities to learn and grow, either by journaling, meditation, receiving therapy, and any other form of self-reflection can be just as useful (and more affordable) than remaining in auto-pilot outside of our special experiences that we love to consume. I read an interesting and insightful book called “Divorce Won’t Help” by Edmund Bergler (1899 – 1962), who was a Freudian psychoanalyst. Bergler is not actually suggesting that people should never get divorces in this book, but what the title suggests is that doing anything major won’t help people unless they seek and receive therapy and reduce their level of unconscious psychic masochism.

We shouldn’t have to escape ourselves.

We need to love ourselves. Forgive ourselves. Know ourselves. Own our boundaries. Maybe then can we love, forgive, know, and respect the boundaries of others. Greatly reduced projecting.

As we grow and develop as more conscious and self-aware people than we were yesterday, we can appreciate and obtain more value from new experiences, and approach new experiences as better people; and not as the same person 5-10 years ago just wanting to escape their day-to-day life.

Perhaps what we feel the need to be refugees from is a sense of disconnect. A lack of purpose. I wonder if we learned how to practice forgiveness, vulnerability, and compassion in our everyday lives, and reduced the need to be guarded– would we feel whole, creative, purposeful and inspired? Does starting over and traveling in a different environment give us the death and rebirth required in order to reduce the heaviness of the walls we’ve built around the lives we left behind, only to be formed again if we don’t level-up in our mindset and consciousness? Can we implement spiritual forms of death and rebirth into our regular self-development practices, so that our walls can be torn down, and we can feel receptive to our regular experiences?  

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Image source: Michael Matti in Flickr Creative Commons