My first grade teacher handed out award certificates when he saw behavior in the classroom worth encouraging. I got an award ‘because you enjoyed yourself!’ It’s hard to imagine that this happened so rarely that he felt the need to reward me for it, but apparently that may have been the case.
In the same vein, you may have noticed that there was no mention of ‘fun’ as one of the reasons for my taking this trip.
I’m sure people mean well with parting words of ‘Have fun!’ If the tables were turned and someone else were travelling, I would probably say the same thing. But I think fun is more appropriate as a by-product than a goal. My internal reaction to the question “Are you having fun?” is, Who cares?
It reminds me of people saying that when they grow up, they want to be happy. As charming as that sounds, it’s unrelatable. When hearing this, I would think, It was never the job of a writer to be happy. My job is to be present.
“Fun” is not the word I would use to describe climbing a 100-foot-tall fire tower, standing outside in 20-degree weather waiting for sunrise, looking into the chilling eye of an alligator, or visiting the Holocaust Museum. However, that doesn’t mean those activities weren’t worthwhile.
“Safe travels” seems to be the preferred goodbye between travellers; it allows for complexity in the experience. For variety, we need more phrases that convey, “I hope you don’t die, but if you do, I hope it’s while you’re doing something amazing.”