It’s Now About the Destination

Yes, we have all heard it before, the comedian standing up on the stage complaining about how horrible airports are. We have even experienced the moment. There are mixed emotions that we go through every time we are forced to make our way to the airport. On one hand, we are going some place great to enjoy a wonderful vacation, but on the other hand, you have to deal with an airport and airplane travel.

Yes, these places are awful. You get packed into places with large groups of people so they can shuffle you off from one place to another. They just become nameless faces among thousands. You get to sit on hard seats. You get to have the seat in front of you lean back so they can crush your knees. You get to smell really bad airline food because there is no way that you would ever want to eat it. And you get stuck in terminals during layovers because if you leave, it would mean that you would have to stand in line all over again to back to the place you never wanted to be in the first place.

Even though the mere thought of it makes my back shrivel up in dread, it wasn’t until today that I really understood why I truly hate airplane travel. It is not all the uncomfortable positions I get placed in because if I am driving across America, I get those same pains from being stuck in a car all day. It isn’t from the bad food because if we are being honest, the fast food that you find off of any highway in America is just as bad. No, I think the real reason I hate it so bad is because it takes away from me one of my fundamental beliefs.

Life is not about the destination. It is the all about the journey. It is about the things that you get to experience along the way. Don’t get me wrong; the destination is awesome when you are going on vacation, but so is the journey. Some of my favorite stories come from traveling on a train, or hanging with my new friends on a bus, or some of the crazy things I have seen from being on the road. But traveling by plane is all about how fast you can get from one place to another. There is a little hole you feel within your existence because you no longer get to talk about the stories that you would have collected along the way.

Now, a lot of airports will have great pieces of artwork up that reflects the nature of the little corner of the world where they find themselves in, but most of the time they are remakes of some original that could only be found outside of the airport. They are still neat to look at, but you still didn’t have to make the trek to go and see it. Instead it is right there off of the airplane for you to admire.

Most airports try to fill in the void that you experience from not having the journey with shopping. It is crazy the kinds of things you can find for sale at airports too. Incheon International Airport is probably one of the worst. They expect you to spend your money on Tiffany’s jewelry, or Gucci bags. They do not even have a place where you can pick up a small snack to enjoy on the plane, or a book or magazine to read to make the flight go by quicker. And even worse, they have Duty Free shops to fill in that void even more. If buying expensive things doesn’t make you feel better, than get yourself some cheap booze and cigarettes to pass away the time. The sad thing is you will only wake up from that with a bigger void you wish to fill.

In fact the only time you feel like you have completed anything that feels like a journey is when you first arrive at the place where you will stay. This is the first time that what you will see that looks like it has the adventure that we crave as human beings. The only problem is that it is found at the destination, the place that was meant to be our reward for going through the adventures in the first place. Think about every great epic story that you know. It is not about them being at the place, but instead it is about the adventure they have to get there. And I long for the same thing in my life.

The only problem is that after all the exhaustion that is experienced on the voyage to get to your destination, the only thing you look forward to is the bed so you can rest up to take on the next day. Yes, the next day will be filled with adventure, and it will be worth the long travel to get there, but you are still missing out on something because of the airplane travel. Now don’t get me wrong. In this busy world that we live in, I will still take that flight so I can enjoy places like Laos on the spur of the moment, but there is still a part of me that wishes that I could experience it the old way where I would take the long, slow route, so I have something to talk about when I get there.