Jet lag versus mind lag

# Chapter 295

Jetlag is terrible, confusing the International Traveler more than the new sights, sounds, expectations and smells. I still have it even after 30 years of regular overseas travel. Jetlag is when your mind and body are out of sync with the new reality that you have force them into, too suddenly. The adjustment can be mild to painful. It had me awake when I wanted to be asleep last night, and likely will powerfully want me to sleep sometime today, when I need to be awake. You are in the wrong reality and your body and mind are struggling to align everything once again.

Cultural mindlag happens when you don’t travel anywhere, and this is even worse than jet lag. It happens when your world view and the world view of those around you are myopic and self focused. Anyone not living near you or in your country are unimportant and irrelevant it seems. You make decisions in a vacuum. You see only your point of view. We can’t empathize with others. The longer you stay in this mindlag the worse it becomes, eventually breaking down even your own culture into smaller and smaller groups of “us” and “them” and all and everything is reduced to a competition of win or lose.

Interestingly, one of the best antidote’s for cultural mindlag is jetlag. Getting out of your tiny world and experiencing the larger world. At the very least you will have renewed gratefulness for what you have, and how easy it is to get. At the very best you will have a new understanding that we all share this common world and that we are linked together in more ways than we are separated.