Life Lessons From The End Of The World
Getting away from it all sounds appealing when you’re rushing through life checking items off your “To Do” list and thinking you could have done each one of them a little better. How would it feel to be in a place that is calm, serene, silent, disconnected from the outside world, and where no one knows you well enough to ask anything of you?
I had the opportunity to find out last week as my cruise ship spent 7 days at sea between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia, Argentina — also known as the city at the end of the world.
Our scheduled stop in the Falkland Islands was canceled due to bad weather. This added an extra two days to the already scheduled five days at sea to cruise around King George’s Island, Admiralty Bay, Paradise Bay, and Charlotte Bay in Antarctica; and to be completely disconnected from the world outside the ship.
Antarctica is virtually untouched by humans. Cruising is the only way to visit unless you’re on an expedition team. For five days I felt like I was floating in an ethereal silent world of silver and white where it’s almost impossible to tell where the snow ends, and the water and sky begin. The only sound from my balcony was the crackling of the ice, similar to what you hear when you pour the liquid over ice cubes. And this time of year, it doesn’t get dark at night, it just gets gray. Virtual daylight but little sunshine 24×7.
There was a constant parade of icebergs of all shapes and sizes and large chunks of glacier ice passing in front of my balcony. The glacier ice is underlit by a neon blue light caused by the amount of ice visible underwater. It looks man-made but is natural, God-made, and truly beautiful. It’s almost hypnotic to watch it all.
The cruise ship was the only vessel on the water, and other than an occasional spotting of whales, colonies of Penguins and an Albatross flying by, we were completely alone. Even though I was accompanied by 1300 people on the cruise, when I was standing on my balcony surrounded by snow, water, and sky, I felt completely alone.
Antarctica is a place people go to be unreachable. Internet connections were impossible, phone calls extremely difficult, and we had no TV reception on days when there was a lot going on. In this world of constant connection and news 24 x 7, what’s a person to do when you can’t connect? How do you get through the day without knowing what’s going on in the world? What do you do when no one needs you to do anything?
Not being able to connect with the outside world made me feel uncomfortable. I found myself checking my phone to see if it was working and trying to log on to the internet much too frequently. I was surrounded by beauty and yet I just didn’t seem to be able to let go of the need to connect, even though there was no urgent reason why I needed to. I think constantly checking our phone for messages is another one of those habits we develop without fully understanding why. It’s difficult to stop even though you say that you really want to get away from it all.
I finally realized I was wasting too much time trying to fix something that wasn’t fixable. Wouldn’t it be better to stop resisting reality and enjoy where I was? After all, I was in Antarctica and heading to Ushuaia, the city known as the end of the world, and likely won’t come this way again. Wouldn’t it be better to fully experience the world I was in and enjoy the present moment?
The lesson I took away from this experience was to stop doing what clearly isn’t working. Relaxing and accepting the reality of the moment is a much better choice than fighting the impossible. How many times do we continue to but our head against the wall of something we don’t like but can’t change?
The feeling of being cut off and unable to communicate didn’t feel good, but it wasn’t within my power to fix. Continuing to try only increased my frustration and prevented me from enjoying the beauty of the moment.
To simply stop doing what clearly isn’t working may sound too simple but often what sounds simple isn’t easy to do.
Something to think about.
Originally published at http://traveltheworldwithrita.wordpress.com on February 10, 2020.
