I have a problem. Fine – I have about a gazillion problems. But right now I am going to talk about just one and that is the image I have put up here.
I fall in the classic twenties age-group where life is moving ahead at the rate of ten “wheeeeeees” per second. That can roughly translate into getting married, moving overseas for a jazzy job and going on exotic holidays. Oh and clicking 19345967 photographs of the said holidays! (I am up for mine next month – more on that later). So there are a lot of “whees” going around or at least that’s what Facebook likes to tell me. They are paired with those Buzzfeed/HuffPost/Blah blah articles of “579380 things to do before you settle down” and “843823 rare places to see before you turn 30”.
The line was crossed when this image started trending. It is one thing to show-off your lovely travel and trotting lifestyle with edited photographs and unrelated captions, but it turns insulting when you put this up. You just made having babies and giving birth to new life into a trivial activity! You just made a couple who are learning the ropes of parenthood into a pair of lifeless bodies! You just made those magical nine months into a boring everyday task! I don’t know how many people really focused on the first part before mindlessly uploading and sharing this picture. Maybe the travelling part of it appealed so much, they just overlooked the secondary message. It made me feel really sick – why use comparison to highlight your travel bug? How are these two even related!
Is “settling down” really so bad to our generation that we have started pulling it down like this? Is it so “old-fashioned” and “boring” that getting married before 24 is suddenly a social crime? Is “living and learning” equal to “single and bohemian”? Last time I checked, it is possible to get married and have babies (not necessarily in that order) and yet lead a great life. We want to break free and fly but now it seems that freedom has grown some chains of its own! Because if I don’t abide by certain definitions of freedom and liberty, I have not really made it.
Let us take a reality check. First, not all of us have the means and time to do so much country hopping when even commuting within city is cumbersome. Second, not all of us like travelling so much that we will be off every month to some odd place – adventure lurks in our backyard in the form of pesky monkeys. Third, not all of us care about where in seven hells you have traveled unless you are getting something for us. The irony is that a majority of those who put this up are so lazy that they can barely cross the street let alone cross the border.
Wanderlust is pervasive. It does not matter if you do it solo or you do it with a caravan of seventeen noisy children. Travelling is fun but then so is raising a family. You can have both – at the same time too. Just think before you post.
Thoughts? I know I did some massive generalization and there are still many of us with substantial gray matter – Yay for us!
And here’s a big High Five for this post!!! Well done! Well said!
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High Five!! Thanks a lot 🙂
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I can’t tell you how much I love this post. You’re spot on!
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Thank you so much Sandra 🙂
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Well said..
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That really makes sense. I never thought of it that way before.
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Well written! Parenting might change life. But it has its own set of pleasures i guess.
I’ve seen fathers travelling with their toddler perched on their shoulders. Such a wonderful sight. They both look in such a playful mood
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I love that too! And kids with their grandparents… 🙂
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Love this! People could at least enjoy life without putting down the one others are leading.
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Thank you 😀
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Now kudos for writing this up 🙂 Social networking is creating a hole in our lives…you expect too much out of your life and people have started taking life as an mission 😦 Its high time we start opposing all this and enjoy the moments of our life 🙂
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Thanks a lot NJ 🙂
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🙂
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I don’t know why does this post make me sad? 😦
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Eye opener ..didn’t really see the picture that way…but you are right..looking at it immediately makes me long for travelling and adventure..
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[…] thought about this many times and today while reading An Armchair Perfectionist’s post it all came back up again. I agree a lot of things change when you become a parent. Of course […]
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I don’t mind the image, but I do get offended when this happens:
I say I plan to travel when my last child leaves the house.
They say, “Why wait?”
I say I don’t want to be away from my kids, I don’t want to drag them across the globe, and um, duh, money.
They say, “You only live once. Tomorrow is not a promise.”
I say, “If I die today, I would not regret not seeing the world, I would regret leaving my children motherless before they’re grown.”
I traveled before my kids, I travel some with them, and I will travel when they leave. Why on earth should anyone care? In turn, you won’t see me telling anyone “Hurry up and have a baby before your eggs shrivel up!”
I don’t know what’s wrong with people. lol
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I have similar talks with my mom… She has traveled a lot and more after having us. Travelling is her way of relaxing and it makes her happy 🙂 You can see it in her energy levels. Whatever works for each of us as long as we are not hell-bent on comparing.
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My dad was in the military, so I traveled a lot as a child. Not to anywhere most people would consider exotic, but it was interesting. By the time I was in high school, I was tired of traveling. Now I’m ready to go again. But everyone doesn’t have the money to go gallivanting around the globe. I think it was Henry David Thoreau, a great writer in my opinion, who did not travel far from home at all. And after all is said and done, there’s no place like home. Having children is quite an adventure, too.
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It all depends on whether something works for you or not. We are all unique which is a beautiful – not something to be compared and judged.
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Right on the target Prajakta! In recent few years people have started to compare life styles of each other and moreover, they’re declaring their own as superior than others’ which I guess is total bullshit. No need to mention how badly they are addicted to this hopping-over-places life style. Having read loads of articles about how traveling helps you learn and grow wise has made me feel like I’m getting dumb day by day as I travel very less. All they want is to show off how adventurous their life is when they compare the journeys of two souls. One must not forget that not all the people are blessed with equipments and luxuries to go on hopping over places every now and then. I wonder, why one shall decline seeing the beauty around the world when provided all the necessary things especially money? On the other side, settling down at one place and enjoying the steady flow of life events is no bad deal at all, as long as one is happy doing it.
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As long as one is happy – do what your heart desires I say. You just don’t need to compare and show off at every stage! Thanks a lot for sharing your wonderful comment here, Pratik
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Most welcome! 🙂
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story of my life! sigh!
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[…] An Armchair Perfectionist I can’t tell you how this post made me feel (but I might write about it…). She nailed it! […]
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Very true! Sometimes people are confused by what they have seen on TV and thought they couldn’t have fun when traveling with family. Well, I guess they really should try at least once before they judge that particular matter.
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Travel without judging I say!
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couldn’t agree more with you 🙂
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Thanks God !! Finally someone who shares my feelings about this “being liberal” thing…I couldn’t agree more Prajakta, losing moral values is another thing but now it’s looked down upon if someone hold on to their views about, traditional norms for example. We as new generation are the most confused beings, we are blind sided by what is shown on the T.V etc, 99% of teenagers I’ve met are most worried about being “Uncool”, it’s frustrating to see where we are heading. We seriously need a reality check, BIG TIME.
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I swear to you! How does “cool” matter – it is so subjective anyway… Thank you Zee for leaving behind a thought here 🙂
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Blend of many schools of thought in one bowl…
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I enjoyed a bit of travel before I was married, but lost the desire once I got married and started a family. Priorities shift big time. Just mentioned the other day to my wife (myself having just got a new passport) that I haven’t travelled more than 300 kilometers from home in the past 12 years. Only now as our 4 children are becoming adults am I once again thinking of travel. And it is usually pertaining to a destination race in some far off land….haha. 🙂
I definitely can see how social media can really fuel a restlessness in people when they are bombarded with it dozens of times daily. It can become an “ego” thing, “Look at me, look where I have travelled” You will never find articles about “the adventures of raising a family”. When I was travelling a bit over 30 years ago, there was no such thing as social media. Home computers were just coming out, very expensive and inefficient compared to nowadays. I did not get one until many years later. If I wanted to read something on travel, I would have to “travel” to the library to read something in printed form whether a book about travel or a National Geographic Magazine. It was not shoved in our faces. Because I live 12 kilometres from the library, I did not bother much to make the trip. 🙂
~Carl~
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Travelling without social media/internet must have been very liberating 🙂 I am glad you are thinking of taking up travelling again… It is so exhilarating 🙂 The same place can look different since the one visiting has changed so much! Thanks a ton for reading this and leaving me with such a thoughtful comment.
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You are very welcome Prajakta! Yeah it was very liberating without social media. Just an hour a day without social media, is 7 extra hours of free time a week! It is funny what you have mentioned, because the places I would like to visit, are the places I have been to before! 🙂
~Carl~
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Speaking from only personal experience as a younger baby boomer AND older mother, here’s my two cents.
Enjoy as many of life’s experience as you can while you’re young, healthy and unencumbered.
There are many variables that will determine if you can continue to enjoy these experiences when you become a parent. I have two children who are now young independent adults that we took on many trips across the US while they were growing up. One of them made these trips generally enjoyable while the other did not.
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Very well said! Thank you so much for sharing your perspective
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To each his/her own I guess, though, more and more, “own” is being defined by media images and advertising. Deriding someone smacks of a lack of self-esteem.
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True that!
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Now, that’s one way of looking at it. I’ve observed that the public, at large, takes everything at face value. The time lag between seeing something and reacting to it has become so less that, as you mentioned, less people actually think before posting. But honestly, I feel that whoever made this wanted to say – there’s a time for everything. Or maybe, it was just an attempt at self-deprecating humor. Who knows?
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I understand… I know I did a fair amount of generalizing in this post. But the my-life-is-more-exotic-than-yours syndrome has been doing rounds for a while. This image pushed me. Thanks for giving a fairer perspective here 🙂
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Your point is valid. ..I liked it but somehow I just like the idea of living alone for a bit while travelling until I crave to be accompanied 😢
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Travel 😀 Go all out!! It is a great experience and solo travel is on my list as well!
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Hi Prajakta,
if you need help against idiots, maybe you can call Great Khali 😉
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ROFL !!!
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Well.. somehow i missed this one.. and for whatever reason.. culture
has never controlled me.. i suppose the benefit of a young outcast
from it.. but all i feel is happiness lives within..
and there are travels in Human Love
and empathy that only
require human
moving
connecting
and creating
with a positive spirit..
there is a drought of human
spirit and truly that is the expresSinG
of simple human Love wheRE an
adventure is a breeze on a front
porch with a neighbors dream
where the smile
of a child
and the
grin of
a dog or
purr of cat
AKA as human
FEELING
EXPRESsinG
E M P A T H Y
iS Life enough
for Now.. ‘they’
don’t kNow or feel
what ‘they’ are misSinG
as they never had it or
never found it or never
lost it like me..
there is an adventure
in every step of human
connections alone and
ALLONE FOR ME..
wheRe i exclude no
one from my
game of life..
so sure..
i live in
bliss as i travel
with it and have
to
no
longer
go
there
alone..
i raise a village
in the star of me..
and dance free
with others
who
ARE
FREE..
Oh..! and Hi!
Prajakta.. nice
to see you again!
and say hello to
those monkeys
for me..
in
INdia
backyard
with you
my FRIEND..:)
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You are such a positive person, Frederick! 🙂 Empathy is so very important – the understanding that we offer to others is special. The monkeys are a hungry lot 🙂 Will definitely pass a banana to them from you.
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Thanks Prajakta.. smiles..:)
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Hey Praj,
How are you? Took a break from blogging?
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Hi Upen 🙂 Thanks for checking in. Illness and deadlines kind of took over for a while. A poem coming up 🙂
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I hope you are fine.
A poem in line?
I am sure
It will be like
Old Wine:)
Cheers!!
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I think people like to talk more then actually doing it 🙂
GOD I cant remeber when i went out to a different country … and when i was a kid i had the most fun when we went as a family .. yes going with friends is also fun but family is more fun because i had parents paying for it all .. but now i have to pay 🙂
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Very well written and totally relevant to the younger generation and their priorities
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Whoa! I couldn’t agree more man! ❤
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Thanks man 🙂
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So I’m behind. Our culture pulls down having kids actively. Even dating someone seriously. My brother runs into it, when his friends from high school are all, “Uh, why have children this early? Or at all.” Good post.
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Man!. I love ur blogggg.
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Thanks Mahek 🙂
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Is “living and learning” equal to “single and bohemian”?
Made me someone else.
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Hope it gave you food for thought. Thanks Nishita for your dropping in 🙂
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[…] thought about this many times and today while reading An Armchair Perfectionist’s post it all came back up again. I agree a lot of things change when you become a parent. Of course […]
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