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The use of the term rose-colored or rose-tinted glasses is often chosen to describe something in a more positive light than it actually is, but I have discovered something recently on my travels - sometimes the removal of the rose-colored glasses is the best gift we can give ourselves. In some ways, it is quite liberating, and offers a deeply refreshing and calming breath of fresh air. The gift of this calming breath of fresh air is that it enables us to deepen
our experience and increase the quality of our everydays no matter where we find ourselves in the world.
I am still navigating my way through all that I am experiencing and discovering as I make my way through my travels this week in France, but especially as of late, I am finding a calm that I have never felt before about future steps.
It can happen sometimes that we dress something up in our minds that is far better and more "perfect" than it actually is. And it is important to note that it is not the fault of whatever or whomever we have projected this idea upon. Rather it is a reflection of the person making the assumption - ourselves. Often, if we choose to do the self-analysis, it is a revelation of something we are seeking in our own life that feels out of our control or unknown as to
how to solve or correct or improve. So in order to attain what we seek, we think it must reside someplace else.
Paris and more broadly France, has been and is a dream destination and offers a supposed perfect way of life for people from around the world, and I include myself in accepting this supposed truth. Now, as I shared in my post on Wednesday, don't get me wrong, France is a fascinating, inspiring, magnificent and a deliciously lovely place on our planet Earth. But context is deeply important.
The more I converse with people who live here and expats who have lived here for decades and would not consider leaving for a moment, I begin to understand more about the ways of the culture, the ways that drew me to this magnetic destination on the map, and the history of such a desirable place.
But I also know that marketers love using any reference to France or Paris to draw more eyeballs, collect more sales and an excuse to raise their prices. They do this because they can - because it works. It doesn't mean the wine and cheese aren't top of their class, they are. It doesn't mean that we can find historical destinations somewhere else in the world such as Musée D'Orsay or Palais-Royale, we cannot as each historical destination is unique unto
itself. But what I am discovering for myself over the past nearly 20 years of visiting France is the lessons the country was trying to teach me. I am discovering, and I am grateful most sincerely for the country's patience with me to reach these aha moments, that we cannot escape to any place around the world making the assumption that life is so much better in [insert the travel destination that fits this description] when we haven't come to terms with why we have placed this destination
on such a pedestal without truly understanding its rich and lengthy history nor our true reason for seeking it out.
Every destination has its beauty of some sort and every destination has its flaws. Some more than others, but no matter where we find ourselves on planet Earth, it is possible to find contentment. It is possible because we are our constant company, and we must find peace within ourselves, the strength to be strong with our life choices and to not follow where the crowd says we should go, or like what the masses prefer or live in a way that has been tradition if
it suffocates our beauty and truest being.
However you are interpreting today's Letter from the Editor, this is not a letter about a trip that has been frustrating. Quite the contrary, this current trip to France has been one of the best I have had ever had. It has been liberating, insightful and the most comfortable and enjoyable trip I have had of the many I have had the good fortune to make to France. And I think that is part of the gift we give ourselves when we do the homework of figuring out why we
think "someplace else" must be better than where we are making our life currently. We can enjoy our getaways and vacances far more fully when we aren't asking it to be something in our lives that it never can be. A place cannot bring us contentment. Rather, it is a contented person that finds contentment in any place they are.
Due to my current trip in France, the blog posts schedule has been adjusted with only a few posts being shared this week; however, I have been busy on Instagram, so be sure to pop over there to view the photos and longer posts as well as TSLL's Highlights - FR Trip '19 - Part One & Two. I do hope you enjoy this week's newsletter and look for a podcast episode this coming Monday - one of the top archives from season three and a French-Inspired episode at
that.
If you are celebrating the Fourth of July, I hope you have a wonderful long weekend, and for everyone, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and first weekend of July. Until next Friday, I will see you on the blog. Bonne journée!
