This "Live Like You're Traveling" joins "Floral Fridays" with a beautiful theme of "Something Romantic". More info on "Floral Fridays" below.
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who lived in a Concrete Jungle. One fine day she met a dashing prince from a kingdom far away and over the ocean. They fell in love! Every 6 weeks they would fly all over the world to meet each other at a new exotic location... They fell more and more in love! Then, exactly a year from the day they met, the dashing prince whisked the princess from her Concrete Jungle to his kingdom far away and over the ocean... where they're living their happily ever after...
Hmmm... fairy tale? Yes! MY fairy tale! (ps. Eat your heart out Hollywood!)
Am I lucky? For sure!!! BUT that's not my point. My point is that actually falling in love is a simple science and if we can crack it, staying in love will also become as easy as eating cake for breakfast! WHAT!? Yes, yes, that's right, SCIENCE! Just stay with me...
Take Vito and I for example. We fell in love under very High Emotion* circumstances, let's add them up:
1 - We had obstacles to overcome together (living on 2 different continents, being from 2 different cultures, different languages, etc.)
2 - We had a limited amount of time (we saw each other about every 6 weeks for a long weekend, thus we knew at some point in time we would have to make some decisions.)
3 - When we did see each other, we usually traveled to a place that was new for both of us (that's already exciting all on its own).
Here we are circa 2006 reunited in Schiphol airport, such young punks :)
• • •
Have you ever wondered why co-stars in movies fall in love so often? Because they're thrown together in "High Emotion" circumstances. They usually have to overcome some kind of obstacles together, like long shooting schedules, tyrant directors, and so on. They know that the filming of the movie is only for a limited time, and we tend to stress when we think something nice might be taken away from us. Finally, the filming of a movie is usually in some location that's not their home.
This is also the reason, people that work together fall in love, pairs figure skaters usually get married (Olympics on my mind!), and lovers that meet while traveling always stay sharp in each other's minds.
So what can we learn from all this?
{ Love } like you're traveling!
If we can figure out how to create similarly High Emotion* circumstances in our daily lives, just like the ones that come up naturally when we travel, then we'll be able to stay in love forever. Theoretically speaking... :)
One of our missions of living like you're traveling is to see beauty with a pair of 'fresh eyes', this doesn't just apply to your surroundings, your city, it also applies to the people you love. So how do we create these *High Emotion* situations in our everyday lives?
Glad you asked, because this brings us to our...
• • • THE LLYT CHALLENGE • • •
Let's do one specific thing for each one of these!
1- Surprise each other
Thinking up new "projects" to do together will give you opportunities to surprise each other. Like... putting together IKEA furniture (...then again let's scratch that), or signing up to learn scuba-diving, or having a baby together (ha!). Or simpler and less expensive then babies, how about just surprising your loved one with something that seems "off schedule" that you'll know will bring a smile to their face?
2- Learn something new about each other
Again, if we do the same thing every day as a couple, there is very little chance for you to learn something new about your partner. Let's break the routine. Get off the couch. Go to a shooting range and maybe your partner can learn about your aggressive Rambo qualities! Go cart racing? Camping? Simply doing something different together will render plenty of opportunities to learn something new about each other... and even for you to learn something new about yourself too. *Also, don't forget to ask probing questions about each other!...try to find out something you didn't know before about your partner!
3- Celebrate each other
And this is an EASY one! But one I'm sure we all easily forget. Give presents to each other for no reason. A little box of chocolates? Champagne with strawberries on a regular Wednesday night? A fancy night out for no reason! Or simply, give each other a compliment everyday for a week...!
And since this is a romantic Floral Friday, I'm remembering the TWO DOZEN long stemmed red roses that arrived at my house one Valentine's day when Vito and I were doing our inter-continental dating... Maybe I'll ask Vito to "surprise" me with something equally ridiculous (and FABULOUS!) this Valentine's day! The rose in the photo above is also a present from Vito on my birthday, but this time a more practical and long lasting version planted in our patio outdoor pots.
{ IF YOU'RE UP FOR MORE...VIEW ALL --> LLYT Challenges }
Floral Fridays is a monthly photography project with different themes each month. This series is about fun and taking time out to smell the flowers. To play along, please email Trishie (trishie@underlockandkeyblog. com) for next month's theme
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