{"id":234,"date":"2026-10-21T13:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T02:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/?p=234"},"modified":"2026-10-21T13:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T02:55:16","slug":"why-do-we-always-want-to-be-somewhere-we-are-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/?p=234","title":{"rendered":"Why do we always want to be somewhere we are not?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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I\u2019m sitting under the shade of a beautiful tree in a courtyard in Hua Hin.  The breeze is keeping me cool and overhead, birds are singing their morning songs, perched in the branches of the grand old trees and fluttering in and out of the grass in the field next to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few minutes ago, a large and quite beautiful rooster come running past, followed swiftly by a man calling after him.  \u201cFor fighting\u201d he declared as he lovingly caressed the bird once caught, wandering by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the corner of my eye, I watch a caf\u00e9 worker squatting down, and lovingly playing with one of the resident cats.  Scratching its belly and tickling its chin.  The cat is clearly enjoying itself and the young woman giggling at the cat\u2019s antics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The traffic sounds of busy Phet Kasem Rd start to fade into the background, as I focus on what is around me, content where I am.  Yet, next to me, blocking the view of the sky and the mountains, is a large mural of what I can only assume is a scene from the French or Italian countryside.  Rolling hills of vineyards and an old chateau, covered in ivy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why, when sitting in this beautiful place, in this gorgeous country, full of so much to enjoy, would I want to dream of being somewhere else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Us humans are often like this.  Not satisfied to stop and enjoy what we have and where we are, instead, forever wishing our selves somewhere else.  I remember years ago a friend telling me, as I wished my uni exams over, to be careful not to wish my life away.  At the time I thought, well yes, great advice, but surely somethings are an exception.  But now I see the wisdom in those words.  We are so quick to want to be somewhere else, sometime else, that we miss the beauty of the moment we are.  Or the joy and sense of achievement that comes with finishing something hard.  That post exam party would not have been nearly as fun, if we all hadn\u2019t had been through the weeks of study hell together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not so long ago, I sat with a friend having coffee.  We\u2019d just been to puppy yoga and were talking about my travel plans.  I reached into my bag to pull out my phone and show her photos of where we were heading, and how picturesque it was.  She looked up, and reminded me where we were.  Sitting in Port Melbourne, looking out over the beach and the bay, on a perfect clear autumn day, having just spent the last hour playing with puppies whilst pretending to do yoga.  How lucky we were, and yet there I was, escaping to somewhere else in my thoughts and trying to drag her with me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this time away, I\u2019m trying to be better at enjoying and being present exactly where I am.  Not thinking about what\u2019s next, and constantly looking forward, but being happy right here.  Why is it so hard? This doesn\u2019t feel like a skill we should need to work at and yet somehow it is.  Is it our modern day lives, telling us we should always do more, be more, want more? Does this train us to be so focussed on all the things we haven\u2019t yet achieved and experienced, that we can\u2019t be satisfied? Have we filled the now with so much pointless, attention sucking technology, that we all know isn\u2019t good for us.  Our social media feeds constantly overwhelming us with images of something better, that we\u2019ve forgot to just appreciate what we have. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look around me when I\u2019m sitting still, and see so many people staring at their phones.  Not paying attention to the world around them, to the people they are with.  Looking at images of someone else, having more fun than they are.  Don\u2019t get me wrong, I pick up my phone 100 times a day when I don\u2019t need too, catch myself and force myself to put it down again.  Sometimes less successfully than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world is now full of people who seem to need to capture every moment on camera, to share with the world.  I know we\u2019ve all seen those images online, the beautiful locations and beautiful people looking like they are having the time of their lives, sharing this amazing world with each other.  But have you seen the people taking those photos and video\u2019s? They don\u2019t look like they are having much fun to me, like they are actually loving it!  They are so preoccupied with capturing the moment, from every angle, the moment is usually gone before they\u2019ve got the shot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I will strive to focus on the here and now, suck the joy out of all the little moments and be present, not staring at my phone, or stuck in my head making lists and plans for what\u2019s next.  I know I\u2019ll fail at times, but also when I do manage it, I feel more content, more relaxed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will sit in this little Thai courtyard and enjoy being here.  I will focus on all of the beauty and even not so prefect parts of being here.  Like the mildew growing along the backs of the chairs, stretching further with each day of warm wet weather and the ants in their little lines marching from random spot to random spot.  I don\u2019t need to whisk my mind to the Italian countryside, I\u2019ve got all I need right here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m sitting under the shade of a beautiful tree in a courtyard in Hua Hin.  The breeze is keeping me cool and overhead, birds are singing their morning songs, perched in the branches of the grand old trees and fluttering in and out of the grass in the field next to me.  A few minutes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":283442056,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[337,269592,10760,200,269591,349],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-health","tag-mindfullness","tag-thailand","tag-travel","tag-wellbeing","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phmQdk-3M","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/283442056"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/millyonwheels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}