A Letter from Chris Suarez
ARE YOU ON THE RIGHT TRAIN?
There is something about traveling that excites us as humans. It’s the thought of seeing something new, meeting new people, creating new experiences. I’ve always been amazed how you can start the day on one coast and get off that same airplane on the opposite coast or an entirely different country or even continent just a few hours later. There is something powerful in that ability. There is something freeing in that process. Travel and mobility is exciting.
Traveling by train is actually one of my favorite means of transportation. Watching the country unfold outside the window allows us to grasp just how small we are, how amazing the country in which we live or are visiting actually is, and how an invention from the early 1800’s still contributes to our world in an incredible and meaningful way.
Every time I get on a train however, whether in Europe or state-side, there is a sense or feeling of commitment. Once that train takes off from the station, I am all in. I am committed to getting to that destination. It’s a bit of a commitment without the benefit of control. The door closes, it pulls away from the station, and I am a passenger.
If you happen to get on the wrong train or subway going the wrong direction then you are committed - or more accurately stuck - to ending up in the destination that the train is headed towards. It is the conductor’s game. It is the conductor’s choice. It is the conductor’s train that you are riding, which puts a bit more importance on the choice of train we step into.
Enter an expression we hear often, but may not pay enough attention to. It is potentially the most powerful train ever created and the most important train ever set on a track - your train of thought.
Our minds and our thoughts are definitely vehicles of transportation. Our mind can take us to amazing places - places that lead us to see things differently, understand different people, and consider new experiences.
Our minds and thoughts can also be incredibly committed to one direction, heading down only one track. Whether we realize it or not, our minds and thoughts are always leading us in a direction. It is up to us to ask, if we want to end up at that designation? Is it the direction we wanted to travel in? Is it the the direction we we choose to be moving towards? I suppose we need to ask whether or not we are the conductor or the passenger.
Of course at times, all of us get on the wrong train. I have stepped on the wrong subway countless times, only to realize it as the door closes behind me, the PA system chimes, and the conductor announces the next stop - in the exact opposite direction I was intending to go.
And once on that train, it’s not always easy to get off. In actual train travel we are left to the guise of the conductor. The conductor can choose when and if you stop at a station along the way and have the opportunity to get off.
Fortunately however, when it comes to our train of thought, we are the conductor. We can pull the brakes. We can stop at the next station. We can change directions of the train if we so choose. Too often, we give up the conducting of our mind and thoughts to someone else, to external forces. And once committed to a train of thought, we ride that train to wherever it wants to lead us.
We ride that train into the desert and the tundra and the forest. We ride it across state lines and country lines, because we are stubbornly committed. We find ourselves unhappy or scared and getting further and further away from where we want to be or who we want to become. We are a passenger.
That is because we have forgotten that we are the conductor of our train of thought.
Are you on the wrong train? Are you realizing that your current train of thought is leading you to a destination you wouldn’t choose to go to? Are you looking around and recognizing that you are on a train with all of the wrong people.
Just choose to get off and ride the one heading in the right direction. Stop the train. Pull into the next station. Exit that train. Step aboard a new one.
Once you step off the train of thought going in the wrong direction, your challenge will be to get to the right train heading in the direction you would choose to go. Select carefully. Challenge yourself to find the right train. Look around at your co-passengers and ask whether or not these are people you would choose to travel with.
Remember, travel is exciting and powerful and freeing. Being the conductor for our train of thought ensures that we are headed in the direction and will reach our intended destination.
Chris