In 2014, John Koenig blessed the world with a made-up word to describe a very common state of mind. I’m going to bet that most of you haven’t heard of it before. I’m also going to bet that most of you have experienced it more times than you can count on one hand.

Onism
(n.) the frustration of being stuck in just one body that inhabits only one place at a time.

The realization that our world is too immense to be explored in just one lifetime.

The anxiety we feel when we wish that we could be in two places at once, but instead find ourselves trapped by time and space.

The fear that we are just passing through life, not really experiencing anything at all.

You’ve been there, haven’t you? How about the last time you were in a car, and you were driving past a gorgeous landscape. I know that my head was pressed up against the window, trying to take in the sight before we completely passed it by. My stomach twisted with the desire to get out of the car and explore, but I knew that I needed to be somewhere else.

John Koenig created a word that summed up a very real and very frightening truth about the world. There is just too much to see and there just isn’t enough time.

I can’t be in two places at once and there are probably 100 places I’d like to be right now. That is one of the most frustrating things for me to reconcile with.

I re-Vine the cool cliff-jumping videos, and I favorite travel tweets, telling myself that I’m going to add all of these locations to my bucket list.

I repost the articles on Facebook that all stress the same thing.

Travel, travel, travel.

And yet, here I am, in the same place I’ve always been, dreaming of places I’d like to be.

And when I travel, do I really see? I keep thinking back to all of the places I’ve been and the things that I should’ve done when I was there. I get so upset with myself for not taking in more of my surroundings when I had the chance.

Because, travelling isn’t just about being in new places, it’s about experiencing them.

It’s like going to Italy and eating McDonald’s. You just don’t do that.

And when you travel, see new experiences through your own eyes, not through a camera lens. If we wanted to see the world made up of digital images, we would travel through the Internet. Instead, we spend A TON of money to get in a car or hop on a plane so that we can physically explore a new location.

So take a quick pic and then, please, put your phone down. Put the camera in your bag. Leave technology behind.

I’m an Instagram enthusiast and I’ll admit to having over 3,000 pictures of the same thing on my phone. But why? Why do we spend so much time taking pictures to remember things that we didn’t even allow ourselves to experience?

Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words, and looking back on it will spark a memory. But a thousand pictures will not replace a thousand missed experiences.

So the next time you travel, remember Onism. Remember the frustration that you feel when you want to be two places at once. Be more appreciative of the parts of the world that you're fortunate to see, because there’s a whole lot more that you’re missing.

Don’t spend your life passing through places with your eyes closed.