Well, after a day of domestic chores where we cleaned and tidied our home and garden so it is looking it’s best for our house sitter Cody, said our goodbyes to Missy and Oscar, drove to Adelaide, enjoyed some soup at mum and dads (with Sid and Marg who are over from Geelong, was great to catch up with them) and we are now sitting in the Qantas Business Lounge enjoying a drink while waiting to board our flight.

While preparing for our Iceland, Netherlands and Central European odyssey over the last few weeks I have reflected back over the year. At the start of the year I was put onto an author, Jennifer Garvey Berger by Andrew Stevens. Andrew encouraged me to read her book, ‘Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps’ which she published in 2019. I subsequently purchased, read and was inspired by this book however I also came across an article, or maybe it was a blog, that she wrote at the start of the year.

In her blog she challenged us all to make 2019 the year to deepen our knowledge on whatever it is we wish to learn more about. Her rationale for the challenge was the realisation that right now we are in trouble as a human race, things are breaking down and we have gotten ahead of how powerful, complex and interconnected we are as a species.

Jennifer postulated that to address this problem perhaps we need more of us thinking about our world in more nuanced ways. One way we can do this is to build our understanding of our own evolution and more of us who do this, the more chance we may be able to develop new capacities for making sense of our world and the more we can support each other as well as helping each other grow.

She ended her blog with a question, “what will you do to help deepen your understanding of human evolution so that you can become a force for good?”

So this year I have learned about meditation and mindfulness, Buddhism and stoicism, and more recently I have explored philosophy and history, especially when learning about the countries we are about to visit. My ultimate ambition is to write a book one day. The path to writing this book will include writing blogs such as this one, as well as writing articles, essays, poems and letters. I like to think this will be one way I can contribute towards humanity. I want to help us rewrite our mission statement and to contribute towards a new way of organising communities, society and humanity so we can enjoy a sustainable future. As humanity we have rewritten our mission statement several times from animism, polytheism, monotheism and now scientific materialism. Bruce Lipton would tell us that holism is our evolving paradigm, Peter Ellyard talks of planetism, I like the thought of a version of communitarianism however perhaps the answer is likely to be a combination and/or version of all of these or something even more profound and positive.

This year has definitely been a year of learning for me and I have deepened my understanding of many things and I hope this will enable me to be a force of good as we need all the goodness, compassion and kindness we can muster to assist us as humanity to meet the challenges we are collectively facing.

So, this blog of our travels will aim to draw on some of my learnings as well as interweave the experiences, cultures, education and fun I am sure we will enjoy while we explore the Netherlands, Iceland and Central Europe.

Amy has just brought over another beer and a plate of nibbles so I best close this first instalment of our travel adventures now and enjoy them.