Day 74: LifeX

Tonight, Fianna and I went out to have dinner with some friends at a Thai restaurant.  They are an Israeli-American family who habitually live in Providence and New York, but who are close to finishing a one year sabbatical in Paris.  Our conversation was wide ranging, but one of the things that came up was that they were sorry to leave, and would have liked to be able to stay longer.  At the same time we know a Franco-Italian family who have just spent a year on sabbatical in Boston who are sorry to  be leaving to come back to Paris.  I myself did quite a bit of dragging my family to different places every 3-4 years while they were growing up.  Although the uprooting process is not always easy, overall, I believe experiencing different cultures and languages is beneficial.  Of course,  I understand that its not always easy to have the opportunity to move internationally. 

As you may have noticed, where possible, I like to come up with solutions when I have identified an issue.  In this day of  social media and the sharing economy we should develop a new app which I would call LifeX.  The app would allow people (or families) to swap lives for a predetermined amount of time. People would sign up to the app and propose exchanging lives for a 1, 2 or 3 year period.  This could include their house, car, job, friends, political affiliations or any thing else people need to change. The world is full of people who are not satisfied with their lives and wish they could try something or somewhere different.  LifeX allows you to have a different life with the security of knowing you get your old one back at  the end of the period.