It's Not Such a Small World After All

We now accept the idea of the small world as fact. Communications technology, airplanes and global business have shrunk the planet to such an extent that we can be everywhere, stay in touch with everyone and feel real citizens of the entire planet.

This is a great concept, and for most of my life it's proven to be true. The world blows back to its old, unwieldy proportions, however, when you're living 5,000 miles away from parents who both end up in the hospital in the same week.

Dad's surgery, tomorrow, is a standard procedure and has been planned for weeks. It would be nice to be there, but wasn't necessary. Mom's in the hospital with undefined heart problems and had to go through an angiogram today. Fortunately, she's just emerged from the procedure and all is fine.

The angst, fear and uncertainty of the developing situation meant I spent a weekend contemplating the distance between us and wondering if I should do something dramatic to get home. I'll admit, the distance isn't that much by global standards. This situation is far, far worse for my Australian friends living in London. It only takes two more hours to fly London-St. Louis than it does to go New York to LA. But from here you have to deal with limited schedules, changing planes (nobody flies direct to St. Louis any more) and eye-watering fares.

The expat life is great for planned travel. In fact, most expat friends of mine agree that we spend more quality time with our parents than friends who live in the same cities with them, because we tend to go on holidays and more concentrated time together. But dropping in for a quick visit is certainly out, and getting home without advance planning is possible ... but a real strain.

This is a situation that more and more of us will go through in this supposedly shrinking world. In a global economy, most of us not "lucky" enough to be born in the massive cities of the world will move away from home, and most people on the senior executive track will get transferred around the world. Most of the time this is exciting, and technology makes the distances evaporate. But not always.

Today, St. Louis is very, very far away.