Planning another course while you haven’t finished the one you’re currently doing.
Searching for the next training, the next trip, the next book, the next insight, the next healing session…
Does this sound familiar? It definitely does to me.
For quite some time, I genuinely believed that my life somehow wouldn’t be complete without another yoga training in India. Another experience. Another teacher. Another insight that might finally show me something I hadn’t seen before.
And don’t get me wrong – there is absolutely nothing wrong with curiosity, learning, traveling, exploring or wanting new experiences. I still love all of those things.
But lately I’ve been wondering about the line between exploring life and avoiding it.
When are we genuinely curious about what else life has to offer? And when are we constantly reaching for the next thing because being fully present with what we already have feels strangely uncomfortable?
A friend recently sent me a scene from Peaky Blinders that made me think about exactly this.
Main character says – I have three gardeners. Three generation of man with no ambition who are happier than I’ll ever be.
And it left me with a question I want to explore here:
What if constantly searching for the next experience isn’t always growth? What if sometimes it’s another way of avoiding where we already are?
I can travel to India ten times, collect certifications, heal childhood patterns, change careers, meditate, move countries, read 200 books… and still not know how to sit in my garden on a completely ordinary Tuesday and think: This is enough. I’m okay here.
And crucially, “enough” doesn’t mean: I never want anything else. It means: I don’t need something else to make this moment of my life valid.
The Real Tension: Expansion vs. Escape
Two people can do exactly the same thing for completely different psychological reasons. Someone goes to India for another yoga training because: This fascinates me. I want to learn more. Someone else goes because: Maybe this will finally make me feel different.
The same behavior, yoga training, can come from entirely different places
Or:
Expansion: “I love my life, and I’m curious about this too.”
versus
Escape: “Something is missing, and maybe this next thing will finally fix it.”
Because escape doesn’t necessarily look dysfunctional. It can look incredibly sophisticated:
Another certification. Another retreat. Another therapist. Another self-development book. Another trip. Another business idea. Another spiritual practice. Another “breakthrough”.
You can spend years apparently working on yourself while simultaneously avoiding yourself.
Sometimes we’re not afraid of changing our lives. We’re afraid of finally arriving in them.
Because once there isn’t another course, another trip, another insight or another version of yourself to chase… there’s just this life.
And then the uncomfortable question becomes: Can I actually be here?
What if constantly searching for the next experience isn’t always growth? What if sometimes it’s another way of avoiding where we already are?
Perhaps there are actually two very different kinds of movement that can look identical from the outside.
One is: I move because possibility, discovery and expansion genuinely make me feel alive.
The other is: I keep moving because staying long enough to belong, settle, feel, or confront what is already here makes me uncomfortable.
And we could absolutely contain both.
But I also started wondering whether our relationship with “what’s next” can run even deeper than curiosity or avoidance.
A friend recently told me that perhaps some of his own restlessness comes from experiencing war, losing his home and emigrating…
Perhaps experiences like these can shape our relationship with permanence and belonging. When you learn early that places change, circumstances change and home isn’t necessarily permanent, adaptability can become its own form of security: Wherever I go, I’ll find a way.
I recognize something in that too. My challenge has never been learning how to explore. I have struggled for a very long time to stay with one thing long enough to see what could it become. I would start with something and very soon move to the next thing. My challenge is definitely not learning how to explore. Actually I have done a lot of it. 🙂 My challenge now is learning that staying doesn’t necessarily mean stagnating. We can stay with something and still expand inside it.
When does seeking expand our life and when does it prevent us from inhabiting it?
When Self-Development Becomes Self-Avoidance
There was a period when I genuinely felt that another yoga training in India might contain something I still needed. Another teacher. Another philosophy. Another experience. Another layer of understanding. And maybe sometimes it did.
But eventually I had to wonder: How much more do I need to understand before I simply live what I already know?
There’s a strange paradox: We can spend enormous amounts of time “working on ourselves” without actually changing how we live.
For example, some friends of mine are telling me they have another healing session, another retreat, training etc.
And don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with it. Every one of them can be valuable.
But there can also be a hidden belief underneath:
You could literally spend your entire life preparing yourself to finally be sufficiently healed to live.
That’s where self-development can become self-rejection. Sometimes the next stage isn’t knowing more. It’s living what you already know and embodying that into your every day life.
For example; we can very well understand our patterns, and still live the same without actually changing them. Or, we can know everything about setting boundaries, but not setting them…
Real change doesn’t happen because we collect more insights. It happens when we begin living them repeatedly until they become part of who we are. I explored this more deeply in How to Change Your Identity.
When Staying Becomes the Growth
I’ve realized that my own challenge was rarely exploration. I’ve always been good at that. New countries, careers, interests, experiences – those came relatively naturally to me.
Staying long enough to discover what exists beyond the initial excitement was harder.
If movement becomes familiar, staying can become the unfamiliar thing. Someone who’s terrified of change may need to learn: I can leave. Someone who is very good at leaving may eventually need to learn: I can stay.
And “stay” doesn’t mean staying in bad relationships, bad jobs or places you’ve outgrown. Sometimes staying means allowing something to become deeper rather than immediately replacing it with something new.
When the project becomes repetitive. When the relationship becomes ordinary. When the spiritual breakthrough becomes everyday life. When you’re no longer a beginner. When nobody is applauding the transformation.
That’s where depth begins. You can expand vertically (depth, mastery, intimacy, consistency) rather than constantly moving horizontally (new things, places, experiences, identities). A good life probably needs both.
Are You Searching for Something – or Searching for Yourself?
Sometimes underneath all of our searching is a quiet belief: somewhere out there is an experience that will finally make everything click.
Of course, sometimes that restlessness really is telling us something. There is a difference between constantly searching for “more” and recognizing that the life we’re living no longer feels right. I wrote more about that distinction in When Your Life Still Looks Good But Doesn’t Feel Right.
Finding he right career, the right city, the right partner, the right retreat, the right purpose, the right version of ourselves…
But there may never be a moment where life announces: Congratulations. You’ve arrived. Nothing more needs figuring out.
And perhaps maturity involves accepting that. Not giving up curiosity. Not becoming complacent. But no longer requiring the next experience to complete the current one.
Curiosity asks: “What else is there?” Escape whispers: “Maybe what I need is somewhere else.”
Maybe the goal isn’t to stop wanting more from life. Maybe it’s to stop needing more in order to feel that life has already begun.
Take the trip. Read the book. Do the training. Start something new. Follow whatever genuinely makes you curious.
But every once in a while, ask yourself:
Am I moving toward this because it expands my life or because I’m hoping it will help me escape the one I’m already living?
There may not always be a clear answer. Sometimes it’s probably both.
But perhaps the important thing is noticing when our search for the next experience has quietly become a way of postponing our relationship with the present one.
Maybe some chapters of growth aren’t about finding something new. They’re about finally staying long enough to experience what is already here.
Love&Light,
Romy
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