Traveling Lightly & Being Grounded in the Middle of Chaos

Traveling Lightly(ˈlītlē) & Being Grounded in the Middle of Chaos(ˈkāˌäs)

By Leo Babauta

Today Eva and I decided at the last minute to move our round-the-world trip up two days early, to avoid running into a strong typhoon(tīˈfo͞on) that was headed our way.

Luckily(ˈləkəlē), we travel lightly and are flexible(ˈfleksəbəl) enough that the switch in plans wasn’t too difficult.

We put up some typhoon shutters(ˈSHətər), bought(bôt) our kids some food to eat as they weather(ˈweT͟Hər) out the storm with their grandma, and packed our bags.

Through(THro͞o) all of this, we felt tremendous(trəˈmendəs) groundlessness, leaving our kids as the storm approached(əˈprōCH) (though we know they’ll be safe), going into Africa(ˈafrikə) armed with typhoid(ˈtīˌfoid) and yellow(ˈyelō) fever(ˈfēvər) vaccinations(ˌvaksəˈnāSH(ə)n) and a handful of malaria(məˈle(ə)rēə) pills, a bunch(bənCH) of work left undone(ˌənˈdən) as we headed to the airport.

What is helping us in this time of chaos and uncertainty, in this time of groundlessness … is two things:

Having the flexibility(ˌfleksəˈbilətē) of traveling lightly; and
Grounding ourselves in the center of the storm of our lives.

I’d like to share a little about these, because I believe they have larger lessons(ˈlesən) for our everyday lives and the groundlessness we feel all the time.

If we can practice(ˈpraktəs) in the middle of a 3-week trip that starts on Guam(gwäm) and goes through Asia(ˈāZHə) and Europe, centers on a safari(səˈfärē) in Kenya(ˈkenyə,ˈkēnyə), then goes back across Europe and North America to California(ˌkaləˈfôrnyə), and finally back through Asia (Tokyo) and landing back on Guam … if we can practice through a deliciously(dəˈliSHəs) crazy(ˈkrāzē) and tiring(tīr) trip like that … we can practice through just about anything.

Let’s start with flexibility and traveling lightly.

…
https://zenhabits.net/flexible-chaos/