Adopting a New Mindset

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Adopting a new mindset. In the essay "On Habit" by Alain De Botton we see that there are different mindsets in this complex world. De Botton seems to get that it is not the destination that matters, rather than where's your mindset at. He states that when we area at home we become "habituated and blind" to our surroundings because we think we have seen everything there is to see. In contrast he states that when we travel we risk getting hurt, because we were busy staring at a billboard or a minute detail in a house that's not common to ones area. We must adopt or get used to considering everything we see as new so that each time we see it we can gain a different perspective and knowledge from it. When it comes to new spaces our instincts kick in and we adapt or acclimate to our surrounding, because naturally we have to blend in with the crowd around us. De Botton starts saying that he feels despaired to be home, because he had become habituated and found nothing interesting in his native England. Then, after reading some of Xavier De Maistre works, he understood that the destination doesn't matter rather than the mindset we have when we travel to exotic places or even know everyday routes. There are benefits to being new to a place such as the ability to see the different perspectives of one thing, the desperate pursuit of gaining knowledge from this new exciting place we are, the unique chance to eat different foods and meet the locals. However there are also disadvantages to being new to a place such as getting lost often, not knowing the traditions or laws of the place, there could be a language barrier and you may cause problems unknowingly. This happens often in other countries when we go as tourists to have fun and enjoy the little time we have. Now the benefits of being habituated to a place are as follow, we know where to go, we have memorized and seen

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