The Art of Living with Intention

Whether you're abroad or at home

When im at home, I often try to convince myself I’m somewhere in Europe, sitting at a café that’s older than America, having a cup of coffee and starting my morning the right way. Probably all of us reading this have experienced a version of those mornings where everything has purpose. You actually take in your surroundings and appreciate the hell out of where you are. Maybe because it’s new and fresh and inspiring.

It’s a feeling I’ve chased around the globe for a good portion of my life. Chasing the romance of it. Or the lightbulb of inspiration I think might just kick me into gear. push me in a direction I didn’t know I needed to be on.

I have a love-hate relationship with nostalgia. That’s the cruel part of it. It makes you feel really good when you think back to a place that gave you so much inspiration and feeling—but then reality kicks in. You’re not there. You’re sitting in traffic trying to get to your local coffee shop and there’s a stalled car and all three lanes are blocked. Boom. The chase for that feeling..Gone.

I’ve thought and journaled about this topic for years. It’s always been interesting to me. I’m one of those people who’s deeply affected by my surroundings and the people I’m around. I try to control that as much as I can, especially when I’m home in LA. I don’t know if it’s because the environment here is all too familiar, or if the outside experiences of visiting over 50 countries have dulled my excitement about being home.

This is the conclusion I’ve come to: when I’m home, I miss being on the road. When I’m on the road, I miss being home.

Let me explain—when I’m home for more than a few weeks, I start craving the feeling of being out there again, seeing new places, soaking up the kind of inspiration that only comes from unfamiliar surroundings. But when I’m gone, that feeling can wear off, too. I start to miss the comfort of home. The ease of routine. The luxury of not living out of a suitcase.

And yet, landing at LAX on a sunny day with no traffic on the 405 is one of life’s finest feelings. The joy it gives me rivals that of touching down somewhere totally new. But I know that within a week or two, that itch will creep back in. I’ll start checking plane tickets to faraway places. Looking for that hit of curiosity again.

I wonder why that same spark doesn’t always show up when I’m home. Maybe it’s the environment, the culture, the collective mindset. Americans aren’t exactly trained to live with intention. It’s easy to fall back into the hustle. Even though I travel for work most of the time, it often feels like the real work begins the second I get home—planning, emails, Zoom calls, random jobs around town.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the feeling of getting after it and getting shit done. The chase is half the reward. But I’d still like to find a way to feel, at home, what I feel out there. Abroad. Inspired.

Maybe this is the point? Maybe the tug-of-war between home and the road is a contrast that isn’t meant to be fixed. Maybe I need to stop chasing comfort or excitement and start choosing presence. Maybe I should try living my life at home with the same level of intention I bring when I’m abroad.

The intentionality I so effortlessly embrace out there, I want to carry that with me here. Maybe its like photography, if you want a different look… you just need to change your lens.