2 Parents 2 Kids 6 Months 1 World
As I start this blog entry on taking on a family adventure around the world for the next six months, I need to start my story with a bit of background about our family’s dynamic. Christina and I are both Pioneer Integrators according to Deloitte’s Business Chemistry analysis (https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/operations/solutions/business-chemistry.html). Based on a series of questions, it figures out your type of energy, how you like to work with others, and activities that tend to motivate and work best for you. For Pioneers, it’s go big and enjoy the ride! For Integrators, it’s dream and team. Put the two together and you get us – dream up big ideas, details will come later! True to our business chemistry, we both love to come up with a lot of wild ideas. Plus, we both think each other’s ideas are absolutely amazing!
So for us, this trip was no different than any of the other ideas we’ve come up with. The spark that started us on this newest adventure was a documentary on Netflix, Chasing Coral. Christina and I were watching, and Christina said something like, there are a lot of places in this world that our kids may never see before they disappear – we need to do something about this – let’s take the kids to go see them. In normal fashion, I said yes, totally, let’s do this! I loved the idea but was freaked out on the execution. I was already trying to come up with a solution before we had even decided what exactly we were going to do. Christina is in thinking mode, and I’m immediately coming up with challenges and solutioning them when we weren’t even settled on anything. Like, let’s do 3 months, no 4 – how about 6 months? Is a year possible? Air, car, bus, boat? Airbnb or hotel? My head was spinning. But like always, we figured out what we wanted to do with this big idea and then remained flexible to shift it into a workable adventure that meets the intent of this journey. We’re going to show our kids places that can disappear in our lifetimes and will learn what we can do to bring awareness to what climate change is doing to our planet in real time and how we all can help foster change in our communities.
Why was it important to tell all of this first? Well, amidst all this big picture thinking, solutioning, and planning, I began to lose the why of what we are doing this for. In everything, it’s important to keep connected with the why – what is the intent and how do we stick to that. Over the last few months, I’ve actively focused my headspace to remain true to our purpose and what this adventure is providing me as a father and husband. I’ve bucketed them into three focus areas:
- First, there is of course the functional reason for this trip. We know the science is there – the world is changing at an exponential rate due to our human impact on the environment resulting in climate change. As novices, we’ve done some reading on the How and Why, but we are still largely ignorant on what actions we can do to make change as individuals. Through this adventure, we’ll be able to learn more about what’s happening and see real time impacts on a community. How is the community adapting to the changing environment, how are they trying to make change and mitigate the impacts, what we can do to help – all are questions on my mind. I want to come away with a more informed perspective on climate change and what I can do about it.
- Second, we will be presented with an invaluable opportunity to let the world teach us. We’ll embed into new geographies and cultures. For the boys, they will be way outside of their comfort zones and will have to learn how to adapt. How do we interact with others when there is a language barrier? How do we buy groceries in places that don’t have the same things we are used to? There will be endless differences they’ll experience and learn to thrive in. I will also have the perfect opportunity for me as a father to teach things to my boys while we’re outside hiking and camping, like how to orient with a compass or read animal tracks. Are these necessary like skills? Maybe not, but useful skills that I can’t wait to teach them and look forward to the day when they say, my dad taught me how to do this in the African bush or mountains of Chile. They’ll learn on so many different levels on this trip.
- Lastly, I will have an opportunity to visit places I have never been to in my lifetime. I was an Army brat growing up and we’ve traveled as a family with the boys, so I’ve lived in Germany as a kid and seen some of Europe, cruised the Caribbean, driven around Costa Rica and Belize, and visited my (partial) homeland of South Korea, but that is about all and usually in and out in a week or two on a vacation. On this trip, I’ll get to experience the travel, being in a new place for weeks at a time and do all of that with my boys and wife. I’ll be able to see these places through the wonder of my kid’s eyes and learn through their observations and perspectives. I learn so much more from them than any guide could teach me.
We have six months to learn from each other, learn from the earth, and learn from our world family. We’ll learn that we are stronger, more adaptable, and resilient. We’ll be better world citizens who are open to and inclusive of other cultures. All of us will better understand the processes happening that are contributing to the increasingly rapid changes in our world due to climate change. I can’t wait for the journey to begin.
