“I don’t miss this,” I thought as I walked through security at the airport on my way to HR Tech earlier this week. I was a road warrior for the first half of my career. I think some part of me believed that was what I was working for. That the travel was a reward for ascending in my career via lots of hard work and sacrifice. 

Even today, there’s a familiarity that washes over me every time I walk into an airport or a Marriott property. Just last week I was on a video call and immediately recognized that the person I was talking to was in a Courtyard just based on the design behind them. I move through security like a well-trained machine, systematically swiping, removing, and adding my bags to the carousel. It’s still second nature even after abandoning this travel life for almost four years. 

That was when I moved into my van. In that process of downsizing my life, my craving for travel wasn’t met on planes and trains any more. It was part of my routine. I saw new roads and places each week I had never been to on any work trip and they filled me with wonder. Plus, I didn’t want to get on a plane. There were way too many logistics involved from where I would park to safety. It’s one thing to leave your car behind. It’s another to leave everything you own in it. To justify the trip, the destination had to be too good to pass up.  

Now that I’m on the other side of those years on the road, I realize that in all that growth I may have abandoned some of my ambition - particularly the ambition to travel extensively just for work. I love going to speak in cities across the country and seeing old friends at shows like HR Tech, but only in balance with the beauty of home. I just don’t value my frequent flyer status or packing every week as benchmarks for doing things well. It doesn’t feel as rewarding for me as speaking and learning. 

I find that feeling to be shared among most of my friends who have tried to heal from the ways work hurt us. The people who have done the most work on their insides don’t feel the need to parade what’s happening on the outside. Instead of first class, they’re posting about free French fries and flowers. They’re focused on what matters to live a better life and balance, not the race toward burnout. 

In that space where all that ambitious energy used to lie is a lot more joy. The kind that notices my favorite song is playing in the busy terminal while I wait for bags on the carousel. The kind that notices the kid in front of me having so much fun. The kind that closes the laptop to watch a movie instead of working from takeoff until landing, griping about the weak wifi. 

The healing and joy are erasing the space in between what I thought I needed, helping me find something more important every day: a little peace between my ears.