Peace Finds Us When We Let Go of Our Expectations

I try to always keep a book handy in the tent. Right now I’m currently reading “A River’s Tale, A Year on The Mekong” (it’s one I found in the free library in McPherson Squrare, home of OccupyDC) by former New York Times correspondent Edward A. Gargan. One of the quotes in the book really stands out so far:

“As a correspondent for Times, I found myself in cushy hotels, unworried about costs, cosseted in the certainties of an institutional structure that worried about my well being, and available to yank me out in emergency situations. Now it’s different. It’s just me and the river. I wanted to be able to get drunk, or lie at the bottom of a boat, my belly stuffed with boat-cooked chicken without having to scamper back to some hotel room to frantically file yet another newstory. Finally, intent on following my own muse, my own sense of the important, the riveting, the bizarre, the hysterically funny, the tragic, the romantic, I set out to understand Asia in a way I never had before.”

I can relate to this. My work doesn’t necessarily have the breadth and depth of many photojournalists, or say, documentary photographers who photograph one subject over the course of decades, nor does it shed light on the state of international politics. It is just a taste of a moment, a place, an experience, an interaction, and that is how I want it to be. It is my experience that when I let go of my expectations to create meaningful work, meaningful work emerges at its ripest.

Many people long to travel. They rightfully look on with envy at those of us able and ambitious to do so. But traveling, when stripped of its romanticism is, to put quite simply, a journey of the heart. There is a genuine emotional and physical rush that comes with it, the whole “wind in the hair feeling,” that lugging a backpack around into unknown territory creates. But for many people, the lack of structure can feel chaotic.

When you ask someone who has made experienced such adventures, “how was it?” they will often say “amazing,” and surely it is; the sum of all the parts is quite incredible. But the other side of the coin is: it is challenging to enjoy each moment and be fully present and engaged with whom you cross paths, because paradoxical to that “wind in the hair feeling,” is a feeling of being immersed in nothing but your own reality, simply trying to survive your day. Where am I going to eat? Wait, this is raw chicken? When does the last bus leave? WHERE AM I?

In many ways, it is much more challenging to stay present while traveling, even though when many travelers’ retell their tales, they will say “I was just like, totally in the moment man….” Because that’s how we would like to remember our journeys regardless of where they take us or how far we venture out of our hometown…the trick is really being there, and living out that truth.

I said to someone the other day, I love people… but I love traveling alone. It’s true, there’s nothing like it. But every once in a while, when you wake up to a beautiful sunrise in the mountains with no one next to you to enjoy it, you have to give yourself a little push, to once again let go of expectations and fantasies and just be… just be your own witness and relish the experience that you, and you alone are having.

This trip will definitely not always go as I imagine, and I won’t complete all I set out to do, and I’m ok with that. Peace finds us when we let go of our expectations.

Jerry Nelson is a nationally recognized photojournalist and adventure photographer. His work has appeared in many national, regional and local publications including CNN, USAToday, Upsurge, Earthwalkers and Associated Content and he is a regular contributor to Huffington Post as well as OpEdNews. Nelson travels the country seeking out the people, places and things that make America unique and great. Nelson currently is in Washington D.C. pointing his camera at OccupyDC and freelancing for The Washington Times the second largest paper in the nation’s capital.

CLICK HERE to see more of Nelson’s work or to hire him for a shoot.

Advertisement

Single Post Navigation

← Older Entry

Newer Entry →