You Need a Bigger World

I heard a story recently about a young man who came home from his restaurant job furious about ketchup.

At the end of each shift, employees were supposed to combine half-empty bottles so everything was ready for the next day. One coworker routinely skipped the job.

And it drove him crazy.

One night, he came home and launched into a lengthy rant about this coworker and his refusal to deal with the ketchup bottles.

His roommate listened for a while and finally said something wonderfully simple:

“You need a bigger world.”

I haven’t stopped thinking about that.

Because I think we all occasionally need someone to tell us the same thing.

When Small Things Become Big Things

Have you ever noticed how enormous tiny problems become when your life starts getting too small?

Someone doesn’t return the shopping cart.

A neighbor puts something in the wrong recycling bin.

Someone posts something ridiculous on Facebook.

The restaurant changes something on the menu.

A coworker does something differently than you would.

Someone sits in “your” chair.

And suddenly, this insignificant thing occupies an astonishing amount of mental real estate.

I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t care about things. Some things deserve anger. Some deserve action. Some deserve a strongly worded letter and perhaps even a phone call beginning with, “I’d like to speak with someone about this.”

But sometimes the ketchup is simply ketchup.

Sometimes the problem isn’t what someone else is doing.

Sometimes your world has gotten too small.

Our Worlds Shrink Without Us Noticing

I think this happens easily as we get older.

Our routines become efficient.

We know which grocery store we like. We know which restaurants we like. We know which friends we enjoy. We know what time we go to bed, which television programs we watch, where we sit, what we order, and which route gets us home fastest.

There is something comforting about knowing your life.

There is also a danger in knowing it too well.

Slowly, without announcing itself, your world starts getting smaller.

Fewer new people. Fewer unfamiliar places. Fewer surprises. Fewer reasons to wonder what happens next.

You stop going to the new restaurant because you already know what you like at the old one. You decline the invitation because you don’t know who else will be there. You take the same vacation because you know where everything is.

None of these choices seems significant on its own.

Then one day somebody leaves the ketchup bottles half empty and suddenly you’re ready to call a congressional hearing.

Perhaps you don’t need better ketchup etiquette.

Perhaps you need Vienna.

A Little More World

I think this is part of what I love about travel.

Going somewhere unfamiliar gives my brain better things to think about.

What’s behind that church door?

What are they cooking over there?

Why is everybody drinking that?

What happens if I walk down this street instead of that one?

Who is this person sitting beside me at dinner, and what’s his story?

Curiosity takes up space.

And when curiosity gets bigger, a lot of nonsense gets smaller.

I’ve been thinking about this as I plan our Dorothy Christmas market trip on the Danube next December. We’ll start in Nuremberg and make our way toward Vienna, stopping in places like Regensburg, Passau, and Melk along the way.

One of the things I love about river travel is waking up, looking out the window, and realizing the view has changed while you were sleeping.

Yesterday’s church steeple has disappeared. There’s another one outside your window now.

Yesterday you were figuring out Nuremberg. Today you’re wandering through Regensburg. A few days later you’re standing in Vienna.

Your world has gotten a little bigger.

Not because Vienna contains the secret to happiness. I’m sure someone in Vienna is currently furious with a neighbor over a recycling bin.

But being somewhere unfamiliar changes the scale of things.

The little world you left behind still exists. The bills are still there. The irritating people have presumably continued being irritating in your absence. Facebook has found several new things to argue about.

But now your life also contains a Christmas market in Regensburg. A conversation with someone you didn’t know a week ago. A strange pastry whose name you never learned to pronounce. A morning sailing down the Danube watching a part of the world you’d previously known only from photographs.

There’s simply more in the picture.

Maybe That’s Enough

Of course, a bigger world doesn’t require a passport.

Sometimes it’s a new restaurant. A class. A book about something you know nothing about. A new friend. A neighborhood you’ve never bothered exploring. An invitation you almost declined.

Anything that interrupts the comfortable little loop we sometimes build around ourselves.

I like the idea of occasionally asking myself whether my world has become big enough for the life I want to be living.

Especially when I catch myself getting disproportionately annoyed about something that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t deserve quite so much of me.

Is this worth all this energy?

Or have I been staring at the ketchup bottles too long?

Perhaps I need a bigger world.

And if all else fails, there’s always Vienna.