We can stay in the same place and travel great distances.

Two people can live in the same city,* even the same neighbourhood or street, and make it look like they’re living in totally different places.

One loves the diversity they find themselves a part of and, soaking it up, it is always a new place to them, the other wishes others were more like them, resist the differences, and wish, “If only it was more like this … .

The infinite traveller understands that travel is not about the destination but the journey: ‘not to overcome distance but to discover distance.’

The finite traveller can cover great distances but it’s as though they’ve never left home – food, clothing, reading, thinking and more all remain the same, three continents from home.  For all the machinery and technology they have used, in one sense, they have gone nowhere.

Yet we can discover distance by staying where we are and opening our minds and our hearts to others as discoverers of more.**  You are more talented than you think, there are things which deeply move you, you have great resources, there are astonishing people around you; these things have always been so, you just didn’t realise it, thinking you had to travel distances – more training, more influence, more opportunity.  Who you are – your genius – open up a new world of possibilities for me right here.

Infinite travellers understand, those who ‘dramatically open themselves to a renewed future’ are ‘those who look everywhere for difference, who see the earth as source, who celebrate the genius in others, who are not prepared against but for surprise.’

(*Or town, or village.)
(** Stephen Sutton expressed this so well; he’s been posthumously awarded an MBE today.