A Day in Tahiti is One Day Too Long

You know the adage if a tree fell in the forest? If you don’t know that something exists, you might form your perceptions around that which you do know, because you’ve got nothing else to go on. Your reality is formed by your own beliefs and experiences. And in that way we all create our own reality, regardless of whether you realize it.

For example, when I was in my 20s, I used to think a great vacation experience would be to stay at a place like the Disneyland Hotel. To have room service, a real soft bed (instead of a waterbed) and peace and quiet. Today, not so much. That’s not because I’ve turned into some other weird haute person, it’s because I’ve discovered there are other options that don’t involve sharing your space with 50 million other people.

There is a place in French Polynesia that is home to one of the largest atolls in the world. An atoll is a place where the island has sunk in the middle and all that is left is the coral reef, which has long ago died and today is covered with sand, grass, plants. I swear, the weather is perfect; the water turquoise, brimming with tropical fish; and the resort boasts a small string of modernized and updated over-water bungalows.

I can see why a day spent in Tahiti is a day too long.

There is a first-time home buyer I referred from Sacramento to an agent in another town where I don’t work. The home buyer sent me a dramatic email a few days ago, begging for a new agent. The reason she did not want to work with the agent I referred to her was because the agent refused to answer her questions about the ethnic make-up of a neighborhood. No matter how we explained it to her, the buyer could not understand that federal Fair Housing law prohibits the discussion.

This is an agent to whom I will definitely refer more business.