f8 and Be There...
In photography, there is a saying "f/8 and be there". It's a saying that almost every experienced photographer has heard. For those unfamiliar with photography, f/8 is usually the sharpest aperture of most lenses. The saying means most of the work of getting a great photo is simply being at the right place, at the right time. How good your camera or photographic skills are important, but none of it matters if you are not there.
This fact applies in all aspects of life, not just photography. I've been traveling a lot over the past 10 years, and especially internationally over the past 2 years. One thing I've realized is that much of our lives are determined for us for us just by the fact of where we live. The environment and location we live in affects how we think, live, the jobs we do, our perspectives on life, the opportunities we have, and the relationships we have.
Being able to travel and relocate to somewhere else in the world is one of the most liberating, enlightening, and empowering things you can do for yourself. This has been true since the beginning of time and why humans populate the entire world. Traveling through Europe, Australia, the Caribbean, Taiwan, and Mexico over the past few years, I could see how differently people lived just because of where they were. The way people respond to you and the opportunities you have are vastly different from country to country, place to place, even from within the United States. Traveling in Europe, I could see the large differences in the standard of living between people living in say, Switzerland and Scandinavia versus East and Southeastern Europe. The differences are much greater in the lower and middle classes than in the upper classes. Even in a poor country like Ukraine, it was more common to see nicer cars than you would find in Germany, even though that's where all these nice cars were made! The joke was that all of those people driving the nice cars in Eastern Europe, were Russian mafia.
It is quite unfortunate that the people that would benefit most by moving also tend to be the ones least able to. Hard work and talent are important, but the single most effective thing someone can do for themselves either economically or socially is to move to a place where conditions are more favorable for them. Traveling from rich countries to poor ones and back could not make this any more clear.
It's a simple idea, but not simple to do. Moving to a new place means first of all, being aware of where to go. That takes time to research, not to be ignorant, and realizing that sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side.
It means having the financial resources to relocate yourself and the skills and knowledge to support yourself when you get there. But I find that the most important thing one must have is courage and faith. Courage is the willingness to take and the ability to absorb risk intelligently. Faith is the belief in yourself. The majority of people don't have courage and faith to even move to a different state. There are a myriad of reasons and excuses. But look at the millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico, marching 3 days across the Arizona desert without enough food and water and willing to risk death just for the CHANCE of a better life. I certainly don't advocate risking life and limb to move, but use this to illustrate that where you are is quite possibility the single most important factor within your control as to the kind of life you will lead and the opportunities available to you.
Labels: travel
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