In my first post a few weeks ago, I spoke about travel abroad, particularly to Europe. In that message I discussed my daughter, Sarah, who is spending a semester in Spain. I wanted to follow up on that discussion.
Sarah completed her studies and is spending a few weeks travelling before returning home at the end of this month. We spoke to her a few days ago, and she is having an amazing experience. But she told us she continues to meet Europeans who will not travel to the United States out of fear. One person told her that every American walks around with a pistol in their pocket. The press has the world believing that every street in the United States is like the wild west of the 1800s, with constant gun battles.
The power that the press is wielding is frightening. Network news creates impressions that are not true and create tremendous damage. Candidates for office use these impressions to create more fear to garner votes. The travel industry is suffering from declines in activity that are having serious economic consequences. More importantly, when people stop traveling relationships and understanding suffer. The world is a better place when we travel, see how others live and realize that while we may practice our lives differently, most want the same things out of life: happiness, joy, love, family and friends.
Bad guys want to create tension between different cultures to secure power. By visiting other parts of the world we build bridges between our societies. We must be defiant and enjoy life; and one of the best ways to do that is by continuing to travel. We learn that just because we may have different political philosophies, practice different religions, wear different types of clothes or eat different types of food, in the end the vast majority of the world's population are good people that all want to live together peacefully.
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