Travel, the last ditch effort for the captivity of attention

Manning the road down I-30 early in the morning consuming mounds caffeine from a Venti black Starbucks coffee hoping it will be he perfect supplement to the 4 hours of sleep I had got the night before. On a road trip to little Rock, Arkansas to move my aunt who is suffering from early stages of Alzheimer's back to DFW to a better quality assisted living home. IN route, I spent more quality time enjoying my family than I have since moving out years ago. We shared meaningful conversations, laughed and most importantly solved at least 4 major social issues three quarters of the way to our destination. On our trip we exchanged ideas and asked questions of each other traditionally we wouldn't bother asking  but for only the reason of being too busy, shying away from confrontation or whatever excuse one musters not get delve deep into conversation. The road trip we took revealed perspectives and generational gaps and concerns that we as individuals have never made time to discuss and it was great. This to me is one of the greatest benefits of travel, the undivided attention a passenger van or cockpit atmosphere offers that is so difficult to achieve in a multitasking world of TV, internet, chores, and agendas.


Which brings me to the greatness of travel. the captivity of minimal distractions that bring focus, energy and efficiency to projects. Be it plane, train or automobile I see travel as a resource to connect with projects, pople and most importantly yourself without having the current of life to swim against we seem to swim much easier .Have you ever noticed how much work you can get done on a plane? Or how in the back of a car you can knock out a chapter of a book or crossword puzzle a bit faster than you can even in a serene setting at home? I swear if they could recreate an airplane cockpit in high rises across the nation we all would be significantly more productive.I envy the train commuter in the east who gets unabridged time twice daily to pour themselves into there laptops, the morning news or even their iPod. We rarely are put in situations where distractions are so limited we can do nothing but focus on the singular effort of accomplishing one task, and if your like me it's so special when you get to focus like that.  We often times miss out on relationships to foster the juggling of more lesser relationships. For instance, have you ever had Facebbok interrupt a solid conversation with someone else to just to appease a the passive communication of a facebook reply or message? My point is that we have fallen victim to focusing on the number of tasks completed in a day as opposed to the quality at which they were accomplished. Let's not treat relationships the same way. Put yourself in a position from time to time to infuse quality into your week or month. It may take disconnecting to make a quality connection to what matters be it projects or people. I'm glad I was able to do that to connect with my family last weekend.