365 Inspirations—240: Expanding My Horizon

"The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."— Christopher McCandless

I think it's good to venture out beyond the comfort of ones familiar surroundings or spend time with a new person or one we haven't really had the chance to get to know.

Yesterday, on a whim, I had the impulse to stop into a travel store that I've only visited maybe one or two times in my life. It's not an area I frequent and I usually have very little reason to pop in. However, I'm going on a trip soon and thought I might find something travel-related for my trip.

I browse through the travel bags and money belts, made my way through a few racks of comfy travel clothing, contemplated buying a neck pillow for my almost 30-hour day of travel on Sunday and then, thought about buying a travel-related book for the trip.

In front of me was a wall of travel books and I was surprised to see my own book, Lessons from the Monk I Married, right there in front in the Women's Travel section facing out!

"Look at this!" I said to Yoon, "They have my book!"

I don't know why, but it made me happy to see it in the travel section. It was a journey afterall. I pictured someone buying the book for a long flight. Maybe it would spur him or her to have more adventures in life.

Stopping in this store, a place I rarely visit, expanded my horizon.

Today a friend, who has been on a whirlwind adventure of his own, recently came back from Japan and showed up on our doorstep. I have always known Benjamin, but I've never really had a chance to talk with him one on one for any length of time. We took him out for Korean food and then Yoon had to head out to yoga class, so I spent the rest of the day with Ben walking around Greenlake, talking about everything under the sun, and enjoying the nice weather. Ben decided to go for a dip in Greenlake and I sat back on the grassy hill, closed my eyes and took a rest. Later, he took me out for Mexican food and we had fun catching up.

This expanded my horizon even more and I realized how important it is to do new and different things and meet new and different people. If we always do the same things and meet the same people, how can we ever expand our horizon of life.

Do you tend to meet the same people and do the same things or do you often meet new people or try new things?