My Gap Year

There’s always that question that’s supposed to reveal your overall mindset – is the glass half-empty or half-full?  If it’s half-empty, you’re a pessimist, and if it’s half-full, you’re an optimist.

As I’ve gone through these last (almost) six months of my gap year, I’ve realized that the half-empty/half-full debate is of no real relevance.  It’s all a matter of context.  Think of the man struggling to get through the desert, dying of thirst.  Do you think he cares how to characterize the contents of the glass?  Of course not; under those circumstances, you take what you can get and feel thankful that you can satisfy your thirst, even a little.

Now that I’ve gotten into the rhythm of travel, I’ve tried to approach the start of each day as an empty glass.  I’m thirsty – for experiences, adventures, insight, self-improvement – and whatever I can put in my glass at the end of each day addresses that thirst.  Sometimes it’s just a sip or two, but sometimes the glass isn’t big enough to contain it all.

When I was practicing law, I used to tell young associates who struggled with meeting deadlines not to obsess about presenting me with something flawless.  “Perfect is the enemy of good,” I’d say.  Better to get something done than delay completing an assignment in a timely fashion in order to avoid criticism of the work product.  Now that I’m no longer working, I think that, just like the half-empty/half-full question, the perfect/good issue is all about context.

If you’re starving, even the smallest morsel of food might seem perfect.  If you’re stuffed, the smallest morsel of food might be unappealing (I always think about that one last piece of sushi that puts you past pleasure and into second-guessing your choices).  The expression should be changed – it should be that sometimes good is perfect.

Back in the days when airlines actually cared about the passenger’s experience during a flight, United Airlines used to publish a seat-back pocket magazine that would describe three “perfect” days in some destination.  There would be sights to see, restaurants to try, hotels at which to stay; generally, there was a curated list of experiences that, collectively, would make the three days “perfect.”

But what happened if the day you were in Prague, the museum you wanted to visit was closed?  The restaurant that was recommended had a two hour wait for a table?  The hotel was being renovated?  Did any one of those things completely transform the experience into something horrible?

It’s remarkable to me (generally a half-empty person) how I’ve been able to find something every day to go into my daily empty glass.  Some days – visiting the gorillas in Rwanda, for example – there’s so much perfection that it overwhelms me.  Does it matter that I had to take a cold shower at the lodge I stayed at that evening?  Yes, but not really. That cold shower didn’t ruin my day.  I was still luxuriating in the afterglow of my “perfect” experience.

Looking back over the last six months, I’ve found a lot of perfect – perfect moments, perfect sunsets, perfect meals, perfect conversations – but I’ve also found a lot of good that feels perfect at the time.  On the topic of showers, the one hot shower I got in Namche Bazar in Nepal comes to mind.  It was a little drizzle of water in a wooden shack with an open slat floor that lasted all of three minutes.  It was pure heaven.  There’s the cool side of the pillow on a hot night, finding a Caesar salad on the menu in China, sitting with a Mongolian family in their ger making dumplings, walking in the snow in Tokyo, watching sunset prayers on the banks of the Ganges; I could go on and on.  There’s little particles of perfection in the air every day – you just have to be open to finding them.

Throughout my travels, I’ve been trying to take stock of that day’s experiences and not overlook the golden moment(s).  It’s surprisingly easy and natural, even for a half-empty guy like me.  When I look back at my life, I think I expected perfect moments only when I could escape my “real” life.  There were perfect dives, perfect art galleries, perfect crepes, perfect views. All it took was flying thousands of miles away from home.  Back in “real” life, there was stress, pressure, obligations, deadlines, and yearning.

My life has gone through all kinds of transformations since I retired. My hope when my gap year eventually ends (the thought of which makes me a little nauseous, but I’ve got to go home sooner or later) is that I can be back in Los Angeles and continue to find the perfect each day.  I don’t know what might fall into that category, but that’s what makes waking up every day interesting.  My goal when I return is never to end a day thirsty; it doesn’t matter how much I get to drink.  Sometimes half a glass is enough.  Context matters.