Different places

.
That place where we live; the same place we know inside and out, that is comfortable to us ~ is often a place of which we think it has little news to offer us. We know what is there, we know how to react to it as much as how it will respond to us.

Until we start moving to other places; places that we are less familiar with. Places that are different from what we know ~ sometimes culturally, or linguistically; or just as far as the scenery goes ~ have something new to offer to us. And as we are taking all the new things in, we bring back into our lives a certain sense of wonder...

It is that sense of wonder that allows us to look at our new surroundings with an open mind. To see whatever is around us at face value ~ without immediately tying it to our own interpretation. Not comparing it to what we already know; what we are familiar with.

The nice thing is that after having visited new places ~ and have activated our sense of wonder ~ we can when we return to our more familiar environment experience it too with our newly found sense of wonder.
It is like visiting different places gives us new eyes.
A new way of looking at things that we are so familiar with...

One could say that this is a process that would be very beneficial to us if we could use it for looking at ourselves.
Thing is, that in the routine of our day to day lives, we start looking upon ourselves as a very familiar place; a place that has nothing new to offer to us. We start seeing only the familiar sides of us; those aspects of us that are comfortable to us. The parts of us that we know inside and out...
And it is a good thing to every once in a while place ourselves in a position from where we can look upon ourselves differently; from where we can discover new and unknown aspects of ourselves.
It is a good thing to step out of our comfort zone every once in a while.

As soon as we step outside of our comfort zone, it is like we are visiting different places. And pretty soon a sense of wonder may overwhelm us, as we start seeing ourselves from a totally different perspective; doing things we never thought we could ~ or things we never thought we would be able to do.
Bringing those new discoveries about ourselves into our every day lives is no doubt the greatest advantage of visiting different places...
.
.