No surprises pls !!!

A good friend of mine , known him for half a decade now, is an open-minded person who visits new places, probes for new experiences, and has a complaint-free way of experiencing life. A couple of weeks back he shared with me beautiful pictures of a high-end resort in one of the beautiful vacation spots where he planned to holiday for a weekend.

I called him to check up on his holiday, he said the place was gorgeous as he expected it to be but the resort was not as good as the way they were in the online pictures. Following the conversation, a question popped up in my mind.

Do we visit new places to explore or do we visit just merely to confirm, the way we expect it to be in the pictures we see on the internet?

15 years back, just before the dawn of the 1100s when the stone age mobile phones were tapping in, we were on a family trip, a 60 + years old Akka( In Madurai, age is irrelevant to address anyone Akka or anna) joined us to aid in cooking. When we visited a seashore, she was awestruck and conveyed us that she is seeing the sea first time in her lifetime. At that moment, I couldn't presume what all she would have imagined how a sea will look like in 60 years. At the moment she was not verifying the look of the sea against her imagination, she was enjoying a new experience in her life and she was totally indulged at the moment.

Fast-forward 15 years later at present, when we plan on a holiday we want to know how the place will look and feel like, what all are the locations to visit ,to the extent where and what pictures to take, which dress color will suit the ambiance of the location. We spend hours planning for the trip browsing the pictures of the place, to apprehend the minute details, we use 360-degree maps to know whether we will like the place. We don't allow our wings of imagination to imagine about the vacation spot whereas we photocopy the details on the internet into our mind, once we are physically present at the spot all we do is just verify whether the place, in reality, meets the standard of pictures posted on the internet.

When was the last time you visited a place without knowing any details about it for a totally new experience? when was the last time you visited a restaurant without hearing any feedback from friends or reading the reviews about the food? or when was the last time have you visited friends or relatives without intimating them in advance?

I am totally all in for using technology but somewhere down the line I feel have we started moving away from living in the moment. Aren't the the best moments in life are the ones that surprise and perplex us?