Traveling All the Time Will Not Suit You.
Welcome back to Mid-Week Meditations , Lifehacker’s weekly dive into the pool of stoic wisdom and how you can use its waters to meditate and improve your life.
This week’s selection belongs to the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger . He warns travelers against the eternal wanderlust:
Nowhere everywhere now. When a person spends all his time on foreign trips, he has many acquaintances, but no friends.
Letter II: On Discursive Reading, line 2.
What does it mean
If you are always on the go, you will never be in the same place. And if you choose to spend all of your time on the road, you will meet countless people, but you will never establish strong bonds. Seneca believes that true friendship is important in life, but it takes time to develop.
What to take from there
If you are a traveler who is determined to see it all, consider what you have left when you actually do it. We travel to make our lives more fulfilling, but for many of us this can only be done by sharing our experiences with others. If you don’t have friends with whom you can share your great adventures, what’s the point? The point of seeing all this is to share it with everyone.
Or, if you have an unquenchable wanderlust like mine but spend more time at home wanting you to travel, take a moment to savor the good things that come from home. You have time to build a lasting relationship that can often be more rewarding than a trip to some exotic location. Plan exciting trips, of course, but don’t detract from much-needed downtime.
Finally, this is a good lesson even for those who are not travelers and are prone to the social media cycle. To be everywhere is to be nowhere, knowing that everyone really doesn’t know anyone. It takes time to get to know people and build lasting friendships, no matter how you live. Diversification is good, but invest in the people you care about and strengthen your connections.
You can read all Seneca’s Moral Letters to Lucilius for free here .