A short podcast monologue by Brian Johnson reflecting on modern travel as a miracle. He contrasts a 2 hour 40 minute nonstop flight (Austin to Tampa Bay, ~1,150 miles) with historical overland travel at ~20 miles/day which would have taken two to three months, and uses this comparison as a mental practice to cultivate gratitude when small travel annoyances occur.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. Here's a fun fact. I've traveled more in the last three months than I had in the prior three years. It's been super fun to hit the road for some book launch events and other impactful partnership opportunities. Today I want to chat about one of my little practices for travel days. Here it is. Let's say I'm traveling from Austin to Tampa Bay. That's about in a 1,150 mile trip on a non stop flight I can get there in 2 hours and 40 minutes. That's pretty amazing. Now it's really easy to take that miracle of flying for granted. So I like to compute how long it would have taken me to make the same trip 150 years ago. Enter a quick Google search to learn more about the early pioneers. I got a link to check out a site for more on how families made the trip across the country back in the day. For now, know this. Traveling 20 miles per day, it would have taken me two to three months rather than 2.7 hours to go from Austin to Tampa just a couple hundred years ago. As I start my modern trips, I like to remind myself that I would have had to load up a big old wagon and and packed that wagon with an insane amount of supplies, then hoped my family and animals and I made it there alive. I tried to keep that in perspective when my flight is delayed by 15 minutes. And by the way, I do the same math when I'm stuck in traffic with the kids asking them how long they think it would have taken us to ride a horse to our destination and whether they'd prefer to be exposed to the elements or in the comfort of our temperature controlled car. And that's today's plus one. Our modern lives are a miracle. Let's use every chance we can to remind ourselves of this blessed fact today.
