In many of the interesting and important books being written about racism, structural racism, white fragility and the like an important point is made about bias. We all have some baked-in bias, based on who we are, where we were born, where we are on the socio-economic scale of whichever country we are in. There’s no use denying this (“I have no bias! I don’t see color! I see everyone as equal!) as it’s true for us all, though some more than others of course. It’s important to recognize that it exists and manage it – call ourselves out and ask others to call us out when we are unconsciously employing some ingrained bias.

I submit that travel makes a difference. I am under no illusion that it’s available to all. Travel costs money – especially international travel – and only a small % of people can or will take the opportunity to travel and see new people, places and things. However – I submit – it is only when you do so that you realize what you are missing!

I grew up – as previously stated – as reasonably privileged simply due to the accident of my birth to a middle-class white family. Travel for us, however, was largely limited to visiting relatives, who were within driving distance…though those driving distances always seemed interminable to my and my brother, who struggled to “stay on your own side” of the back seat. Travel memories for me as a child were about reading comic books, confessing “i’m bored, mom” and avoiding Dad’s backhander when I was bold enough to torture my little brother. Then we would arrive at the home of our grandparents and I would discover what being bored really meant….but I digress.

I didn’t even have a passport until after I graduated from college (what I fool I was to avoid going overseas for a semester). It was my professional life that finally opened my eyes, and led me to ensure that my children would not suffer from the same narrowness of vision that I enjoyed. You see – the old saying is true: “you don’t know what you don’t know.” If you grow up in one place, one town, and with your own kind of people around ou all the time, then it is extraordinarily difficult to broaden your thinking, and to combat the biases that are already baked in…whether you are wealthy or poor, black, brown or white. When you are forced to stretch beyond your comfort zone, you learn. It’s impossible to predict how much you will learn, and of course that is a function of how open-minded you are willing to be as you learn….but you will learn, nonetheless.

I was given the opportunity to travel for business. I worked for IBM and ended up in a role (roles, eventually) that afforded me the opportunity to travel the globe, build and run multinational teams, and work in many many different cultures. For a boy from the safe suburbs this was initially way beyond my comfort zone. It eventually became a professional differentiator – I began to teach many others how to do business globally – and I loved it.

When I was offered an international posting, I grabbed it. It didn’t hurt that it was in Sydney, Australia, about as cool a place to live as you can find, I figured. My wife was a little taken aback (“you want to go where? where the hell is that?”) but she was a hero, and we moved all the way around the world with four young children. Imagine if you will, being on a plane for 36 hours with kids aged 8, 6, 4 and 6months. Like I said – a hero.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime, because otherwise my kids would grow up in our very nice wealthy suburban community in Connecticut, and think that’s what the world was like. A bubble is what it was. Now, admittedly, living in a lovely suburb of Sydney was not like we were moving to Calcutta…but nontheless, the kids were exposed to people of different cultures, at school and whenever we would travel. My wife – yes, the hero of the story – would organize for us to travel whenever the kids were off school.

It’s worth a sidebar about my wife at this point. She’s an adorable girl who grew up in one house outside Baltimore and figured she would end up in one house, making a nest of it and have her chicks with her to grow up similarly. When I explained what a wonderful opportunity IBM was presenting with, to move overseas, let’s just say it took a little time for her to get used to the idea. #%$&! It then took about 6 months for her to get used to living in Sydney, making new friends and getting used to the new culture. Once she did, though, a new person was born – she started to live for travel, and trust me, that’s not something you can put back in the bottle. After 35 years of marriage, she still lives for the travel experience above all.

The stories of my kids learning how to adapt, how to make friends, how to count on each other for support, are the life lessons that we enjoyed. After living Sydney, we moved to London. My kids have enjoyed travel to probably 40 countries and they love it. They developed an appreciated for people in different cultures and sensitivities for how different we all are, yet can find commonalities that make life wonderful.

Next blog I will explain how our “16 trips” got much of this started. peace out.

This is a personal blog, so don’t look here for answers to solving problems like the pandemic, economic chaos, structural racism or preposterous leadership in the USA (and other nations). No matter who you are, 2020 is a….oh, well, choose your own descriptor, we all know what it is.

I am lucky, and wish to acknowledge that right up front. So many (so so many) people are suffering right now – some are sick with covid-19, some have lost their jobs, some are harmed in more ways than can be discussed. Yet – somehow – I won the lottery. It might be the genetic lottery, as I was born white, privileged and without worries about where my next meals would come from. I had two loving parents and went to college. I did make my own way and performed well during my career in the IT industry, but most people would perform adequately given the on-ramp I had. It’s important to acknowledge this. It’s white privilege and it’s a combination of luck, talent and hard work (i give myself a little bit of credit here). So after 38 years of reasonable achievement in the world of commercial business, I find myself out of a job – we sold our company and I needed to decide what to do next…or nothing. I decide to take my time, focusing on my non-profit activities (primarily Junior Achievement, a great org). Then along comes the pandemic.

It changed the world for sure and so many people are suffering. Yet, for me it has been a gift. There, I have admitted it. I am financially secure, have a home on an island in Maine and the most fantastic family I could hope for. We raised four kids – they are all out of college and on to their next chapters, so I didn’t have to worry about home schooling and other popular anxiety-inducing quests. We left our comfortable home in Ct and drove straight to Maine, where ‘social distancing’ is a way of life any way. “Hey Ron, how’s the social distancing going?” “Well….I thought I saw someone the other day, but it was off in the distance, so ayyuh, not sure, ayyuh.”

I had all four of my kids here with my wife and me for various extended periods during the spring and summer of 2020, and it was delightful. One was anxious over a wedding cancelled. Another anxious over having to quarantine when returning to London where she work. A third anxious about starting medical school in the fall. The fourth anxious about having to cut short his teaching assignment in South Korea when the schools closed, having to fly home to USA (is he really safer here??) and find a job up on the island. Yeah they all had worries – minor ones in the overall scheme of worries in today’s world, but worries. Not me. I got to just enjoy being with them, having dinner with them, working on the property, hiking with the dogs, going on kayaking trips. I am sooo selfish. This is the best pandemic ever.

Every blogger has a first blog. This is mine. There’s nothing special about it other than the fact that it’s mine. I am not a celebrity and don’t anticipate attracting much viewership. Who knows if my family will even find this (unless I send it to them and insist the offer supportive comments). Why blog at all? I guess I am a bit bored and searching for my next ‘thing’ to get excited about. After 38 years of work in the IT industry (IBM, Xerox, CSC, small companies, companies that got sold), I embarked on an ‘encore career’ (doesn’t that sound gentler than ‘retired’?). I spend most of my time on non-profit activities, which I can bore you with soon, and I also spend time with myself, and my family. Now I am trying to determine if that’s enough for me. Maybe it is – maybe I deserve this time and freedom. I read, I hike, I kayak up in Maine, I spend time with my wife and kids – more time than ever before. Maybe that’s enough. Yet there’s still a slight nag that it’s not. I rationalize a bit – this is 2020 where the world is all fucked up, so why create any ambition to do more until the smoke clears a bit? That has worked for me so far.