Belief Makers

I am in Dublin, Ireland this week traveling on business. I love to travel. I enjoy everything about it! Meeting new people, experiencing new things, and most importantly, challenging my beliefs.

Each time I travel, I become more aware of the beliefs that I and others around me hold so dear, that we experience them as facts. Take jet lag for example. Each time I travel to a part of the world that is in a different time zone, people spend an inordinate amount of time talking about jet lag. Oh, you must be tired... How are you doing with the jet lag?... I know it is late for you... and my most recent favorite, you must want breakfast food for lunch since it's really your breakfast time.

I find all of this chatter quite amusing as it is all based on beliefs. I personally believe that "jet lag" is simply a state a mind and occurs only because people hold on to their beliefs about time relative to physiology. Last night I slept for nine hours. I ususally only get about seven hours of sleep each night but because I was in the office at 8am (3 am eastern standard time) everyone assumed I would be tired. One of my colleagues even said "Wow, you look great. Ususally when people come from the states, they look very tired."

I have no doubt they do look tired because they believe they are tired because they have certain beliefs about how their body functions at 3am. I actually believe that lots of people miss out on joyful experiences when they travel because they spend so much time believing they are tired when physically, their bodies are not tired at all!