Please Don’t Leave Me To Travel The World

What I am about to write here won’t be a favorable proposition, not at least by your definition. But be patient and just hear my account. I know of the fleeting thoughts in your mind. I know of the temptation. I know the restlessness that eats at you because I feel it too. I know you’re tired of driving these streets. I know the familiarity of these roads has beyond bored you.

I know you’ve had enough, enough of this quaint neighborhood that you see as too quiet. You want something different, you crave a certain flavor of destruction to your predictable black and white world. And you think you could be in reach of it as you gaze at the alluring lights in the distance.

But please, I beg of you, don’t leave. The new cities you dream of won’t solve anything. They too are restless and lonely. It’s not as adventurous or as novel as you may imagine. The constructs you have created, the expectations you have foolishly upheld, will only make you disappointed when you realize what awaits you. Moving won’t fix what ails you. Our mutually shared illness of the pained human condition is never amended by a change in setting or a transition to any geographical location. That’s our misfortune I guess. We’re too broken, too tired of what we have to truly appreciate its worth. We think we’re missing out on something, we think our lives will be better if we did something to disrupt our routines.

It’s not just you that feels this. It seems that our peers all just want to leave, run from the place and frame this city and its suburbs as a home they once knew. They want that nomadic life, they want to be the poster children of adventure and they want ‘traveling’ tattooed as their middle name. They lament at how unfit they are for the 9-5 and how “adulting” is not for them. They want to find themselves in another country because I guess the privilege they grew up with is too prohibitive.

But I don’t want you to be them. I want you to stay here with me and give this life a try. Let them run where they must but let us plant seeds in the soil and the foundation that raised us. Of course it would be easier to run, to scoff off this life as unsuitable and unfit because one is otherwise too cowardly to even try. This path will be hard, routine and even dull at times, but wasn’t that the same for our parents and their parents? Were their lives any less meaningful because they never went backpacking through Europe or Asia? Were their lives unremarkable because they chose stability and tenacity instead? Consider the erroneous narrative imposed by the travelling group and how they mistakenly place fulfillment as a word only in their lexis. But I am reclaiming it from the possession today with this proposition.

Stability can be fulfilling as well. There’s a certain satisfaction that comes with a job that pays the bills and a bank account with actual savings. There’s a gratifying feeling in being able to provide for yourself and those that you love.

So please, before you book your ticket and pack your bags, consider this alternative. Imagine if you stayed and what we could become if you just gave stability a try. What we have here, right now, is ordinary, mundane perhaps by your current perception, but I would attest otherwise. Banality can be extraordinary too if you gave it a chance to be. We could grow old here you know, our lives could unfold into something brilliant. We could make this home, lay donw our roots. We could have our own families and maybe our kids will be friends and call this home too. We could have jobs we work hard at, ones we discuss at dinner after work or at a weekend rendezvous. We could go through all of life’s milestones, all of the ups and downs of growing up right here. You don’t need to make grand gestures or life altering changes to live a remarkable and fulfilling life. What we share is a simplicity others would be envious of. What we have here is a potential to be great in an uncomplicated sense. There’s ease here, a comforting afterthought if you stayed and entertained it.