On its own merits

An experience doesn’t have to be the greatest of all time for you to enjoy it. It’s easy to fall into the comparison trap. You can compare this place to the last one, this beach to that one from 2 years ago, and so on. Doing so simply lets the memory of one good thing rob us of another. It takes a quiet kind of discipline to reset our expectations and take an experience on its own merits, rather than dismissing it for all the things it isn’t. After all, the only Zen on the mountaintop is the Zen you take with you.