The Unobtainable Light, or Two Paths That Diverged

A person must continue to walk throughout their life or else, just like the stream that stagnates, all signs of life will slowly disappear and vanish.  Water, the giver of life, knows that it must constantly seek change if it is to remain alive, it knows that it must always flow, finding new pathways, and overcoming obstacles if it is to succeed, if it is to reach its journey's end. 

 

Following the path is a journey of discovery, it is a journey of growth, and a journey of evolution.  When I began in earnest, seperating myself from the known, the safe, and the secure, my life changed dramatically in ways that I could never have predicted.  Guided by my heart, it led me along a pathway that for many years, I had been too scared to tread, too afraid of the possibilities, feeling that I was not deserving of the happiness that awaited, afraid of the consequences that would come if I were to realise my innermost dreams.

There was one significant moment when I came upon two roads that diverged before me.  One was a secure looking, safe road, that was well trodden by those who had come before me, and it would make for comfortable, easy walking.  The other, now that one was dark and twisting, nothing was discernible around the first bend, it appeared uninviting, and where it led I could not tell.  Yet, as I stood before these roads, I knew already the way I would go.  Even though I stood a while and debated, argued, and reasoned with myself, the route I would take had been set long ago.  My head fought with my heart that day, and as I knew it would, my heart won.  I plunged into the darkness and lost myself in the vastness of the unknown.

The irony was of course, that becoming lost on this road was the very thing that helped me to discover myself.  Around that first corner, obscured from view, but so tantalisingly close (if you could ever know it), was the greatest, warmest, and brightest light that I have ever seen.  It was the light of love that awaits all who seek the true path for themselves.  It was the light of understanding of self, of the world, and the universe.  I tried to reach that light, I wanted to reach it and attain it, and so I walked faster and faster towards it, always seeking it. 

But I could not.  Like a dog that chases its own shadow, no matter how hard I tried, I could never reach my goal.  The light was always there, shining ever more brightly, burning with an intensity that was hard to look upon.  It took me some time to realise that there was one very good reason I could not reach that light, no matter how hard I tried or how fast I ran towards it.  The light had led me on a journey to new places, with new people and new experiences.  My life was changed, I was changed from the person who I once was.  Part of me remained, I could feel that, the old me lived within the new, one and the same, changed yet still the same.  And with me were fragments of all the people that I had encountered, all of the places where I had been, and all of the incredible wonders I had experienced, just as I was a fragment within those same people.  Everyone I encountered left a mark upon my soul, enriching me, as I too left my mark upon theirs, bonding us forever across space and time.

It was only much later that I was able to come to an understanding.  When I had stood and looked upon those two diverging roads, there was never a debate as to which one I would take.  I was always going to take the path that I took.  It wasn't just about where I was at that moment, it was also about when I was.  I was at the right place and I had arrived at the right moment, to be where and when I needed to be so that I could act and make the decision that needed to be made.  A decision that was preordained in the mists of time, in the making of the universe.  I arrived exactly when I was supposed to arrive, the result of countless trillions of possibilities and happenings.  

I was always going to become all that I have become.  It was my life purpose.  When I was born, it was written in my heart that this is who I would be, these were the things that I would do, and the thoughts that I would have.  From that moment on, everything I have ever done has steered me on my journey. Sometimes it has been done unconsciously, without my even realising it, but always I have steered myself on the journey of my own making.  I could never have changed it.  My heart is too strong, it speaks too loudly for me to ever deny its existence.

I believe that this is the same for everyone of us.  Every person has a message written inside their heart.  It is the DNA of who they truly are, the person that they are destined to be.  If you listen and take heed of that message, then you will find the path that is right for you at exactly the moment when you need it.  You too will discover the light that awaits.

And as for that light that I tried so hard to reach?  I still cannot touch it, no matter what it is that I do.  It still remains there, always out of my reach.  Why?  Because that light is me and I am the light of the universe that shines the way.  I am the light of love.  I am the light of life.  I am me, and that is all I ever needed to be.  The real me, the true me.

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The Cry of the Mountain

The Cry of the Mountain

I woke up and I was giddy with excitement and euphoria. I knew what it was I wanted to do! But then I looked at how difficult it would be to begin, I saw the mountain towering above me, and as I gazed toward its lofty summit, I knew that it would be impossible to reach it. "Madness!" I thought, "Utter madness to even think I could do it." I started to turn away and as soon as did, I began to feel a sense of relief wash over me as the mountain slowly faded from my sight, and with it, my dream, like the leaves of autumn, falling slowly around my feet to be lost, and reborn in another time and another life.

In that moment of turning, through the waves of relief that washed over me, I sensed something else. I caught the sound of faint cries carried on the wind. I paused to listen because my instinct told me that someone was in great distress, someone was out there, floundering and lost, and if I could do it, then I was going to help them. The cries were coming from behind me, from the very place on which I had just turned my back. I felt a compulsion to keep going, to ignore this cry for help, but I could not. I had to turn around and to see what I could do.

The act of turning would not come and I stood, frozen in space and time, as the last cry echoed and died away around me. I knew that if I did turn, towering high above me and bearing witness to my cowardice, would be the mountain that I knew not how to climb. I was caught in hesitation between that which scared me and the cries for help, and the compulsion to keep going, with my back at the mountain, and to ignore everything and to pretend it had never happened, that I had not heard the voice.  The cry came again only this time, although it was fainter, I could discern its urgency and dire need.  

I cannot explain why I did what I did.  I've looked back upon this moment in the times since and I am still unable to say what happened.  I recall taking a step away from the mountain only to stumble at taking a second.  It felt as though the entire universe was watching me at that very moment, I could feel the weight of its gravity pushing down with such crushing force, piercing my soul with its gaze.  For an instant I stopped.  There had been no further cry for help and perhaps it was this that gave me pause.  All I know is that pause I did and it felt like the universe held its breath in unison. I moved again, only it was not to take a step forwards as I had been expecting, it was to turn myself about, to look upon the lofty peak of that impenetrable mountain once more.  

I waited and listened for the cry, my eyes searched the trees, scanned the lower levels of the mountain, looking for anything that would give me a clue as to the location of the helpless victim. I saw no one, I heard no one.  I walked forward a few paces altering the angle at which I was looking into the trees, hoping that perhaps I would see some colour that would indicate an item of clothing.  Nothing.  I stepped forward a little more, scanning the mountain ridges, looking at the gullys, fixing my eyes on the trees. Still there was no one.  I decided that I would give it up, that I had perhaps heard the cries of an eagle or some other bird of prey on the wind, on the hunt.  I looked once more time and then I saw it.

There, in among the darkness of the trees was an opening I had not seen before.  Could it be the way through?  I tried my best to guess the direction it would take through the forest and I lifted my eyes up to scan the lower slopes of the mountain. There!  Could it be?  It was almost too good to be true.  What looked like a trail, barely visible, wound its way up the mountainside for some distance before disappearing.  I could not have seen it from where I had been standing before.  It only became clear once I had taken a few steps toward the mountain.  

I began to walk forwards.  I do not recall being aware of this until suddenly, looming up before me stood the trunks of the ancient and mighty trees in the forest.  Now I stopped once more, not in hesitation but so I could remember this moment.  I turned and looked back from whence I had come and I saw that already I had travelled some distance along the path.  Perhaps it would become harder now.  I tightened my pack, took a deep breath and plunged forwards into the forest, into the unknown, taking one step then another along the path.  

It was then I heard the laughter all around, coming from everywhere all at once and I knew that the laughter was from the same person who had cries out in distress before.  I smiled and then I too laughed and I laughed with great and profound joy.  There had never been anyone else.  The cries, just as with the laughter had come from within myself.  My heart had spoken, my heart had known the suffering that would have occurred had I walked away from the mountain, and it had known that my dream would have been lost, perhaps forever.  Now, it was full of joy because at long last we were together making the journey, our journey.  We were on the path towards our dreams.  Perhaps we would never reach the top of the mountain.  Perhaps the trail would stop part way up.  But at least now I was going to find out.  I would discover all there was and I might find out more than I could ever have realised.  This was an adventure.  Together, my heart and I, we were on the path.  We were on our true path, and now the possibilities were endless.

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Authenticity In Life Means The Classroom Too

Today, a group of students in my trainee teacher placement class told me that I was their favourite student teacher, and that they had informed their parents that I was very nice.  This was only my fourth day of placement with the class and at the time, I could not help but feel an immense sense of personal achievement.  One of my goals had been to create connections between myself and the students, as I see that as a way of facilitating the classroom.  When I mentioned this to my associate teacher, she warned me not to be too friendly with the students.  This raises an interesting question: in terms of relationships in the classroom, what is the acceptable distance between a teacher and their students?

I have to be me.  I cannot be any other person.  That was one of the hardest lessons of my life (along with understanding the need for self love) and my inability to be my authentic and true self, caused me to pursue a path and life goals that were not of my own making, but rather the path on which I thought I should walk.  When I am not true self, I can feel that life does not resonate with my heart, we are out of sync, and although the person I see reflected back at me in the mirror looks like me, inside I know that we are different.  Being true to yourself and true to everything in which you believe is not always easy.  We are all under extreme and intense pressures to conform, to meet the wants and needs of our parents, siblings, friends, peers, colleagues, and society in general.  We are bombarded every waking moment with imagery and ideas about what is the right way to look and the lifestyle to which we should aspire.  It's hard not to be persuaded when everything around you tells you the same thing.  These clothes, this hairstyle, these shoes, this career, this house, this mortgage, this car, this phone, these appliances, this scent, this watch, and on and on and on...  

In England last year, after some unfortunate circumstances, I dusted off the old life and I tried it on again for size, the one from which I had turned away from almost nine years previously.  I could still do it, I could go through the motions, I could see how I would be able to make it all work again, just as I had once before.  The job was not difficult, my colleagues were an amazing bunch, the business objectives were aligned with my own thinking, the commute (although a pain) was manageable, the pay was sufficient, and the perks adequate.  I rented a small but comfortable apartment within five minutes walk of the beach, close to shops and other amenities.  I bought a car so that I could make the commute to work.  Suddenly, after years of pursuing my own personal life goals and dreams, I was caught up in a different life, the one I had left behind.  As I sat, hour after hour in front of a computer screen in the office, I knew that this was not my purpose in life.  As good at the work as I might be, it does nothing for my pulse and for my passion.  I cannot find life by looking at a screen because for me, life is in the living, breathing, miracle of nature and in people.  That was the truth from which I had hidden from for so long before and I vowed I would not make the same mistake twice.  At least not unless I had no other option.

Here I am then, ten weeks on from leaving that job, that apartment, and that life.   I've just completed my fourth day of my first trainee teacher placement and I am dealing with life again.  These are lives that I can see, hear, and smell.  These are lives that are beautifully unique, each and every one of them, whether they know it or not, a living, breathing, miracle.  And I want them to know that.  That is why I came to teaching.  These are not just part of a job, something that I have to deal with on a daily basis.  These kids represent a fantastic opportunity, a chance to engage in their lives, and to hopefully make a positive difference.  Through our interactions with each other we will learn together, we will grow together, we will evolve together.  They will enrich my life, as I hope that I will be able to enrich theirs.  How can I disengage myself from that opportunity?  How can I partially close the door on that chance?  Why should I?

Of course, there is a need to maintain a distance.  The line of teacher and student must not become blurred.  I am certainly not looking to be a mate or a buddy.  Does that prevent me from making honest connections and sharing with them?  I do not think it does.  In all of my life, I have connected with people from all walks of life, the rich, the poor, the office cleaners, factory workers, secretaries, scuba instructors, executives, and all of those somewhere in between.  No one person is defined by what they do and it is an error in judgement to believe that someone is the job that they do, rather than the person who they are.  How do you know what is in their heart and their head?  What we do today is only the briefest glimpse into the story of our life, a snapshot of time that does not define who we are.  What defines us is how we act and whether we are brave enough to act in harmony with our true self, when everything around us tells us otherwise.  I cannot be my true and authentic self if I create artificial lines and barriers in the classroom.  I have to be me.  I know no other way.

Carl Rogers and William Glasser, two American psychologists, both adhered strongly to the view that authenticity in the classroom was a key factor in generating an environment conducive to learning.  They saw the role of the teacher as a facilitator and leader, rather than the boss type who simply laid down the rules and instructed.  I see that to get the most out of someone, you need to understand them, to know what makes them tick, what they like to do, what hobbies and passions they have.  This information is crucial in making connections with the students.  Not superficial connections for the sake of it, but deep and meaningful connections that show that you care about them - because you do.  If this is what I am doing, then I am happy with the situation.  As long as we can maintain a teaching and learning environment that observes the jointly agreed classroom rules, and is respectful, then I see no problem whatsoever.  If the students view me as a friend, then so be it.  I will be their friend for the time that they are in my class.  I will support them when they need it, I will help them when they need it, and I will tell them when they are wrong or out of line.  That's what you want from a friend isn't it?  That's what we all need.  These kids don't want or need someone busting their butts all day, they need a place where they can come and feel welcome, respected, and supported.

If I find that this does not work then I'll re-evaluate and I'll learn from it.  That's what life is all about.  We learn, we grow, we evolve.  It is the never ending process of what it means to be alive and to be human.  I am learning all the time, about these amazing, talented, and special kids that I have the honour and privilege of working with, and from everything that occurs around me.  I'll never stop learning and I'll never stop being the true and authentic me. If that means that teaching is not the job for me after all, then so be it, because I am never going to stop caring about people and wanting the best for them.

~ ~ ~

Love is not something that I do
Love is not something that I give
Love is not something that I have 
Love is simply all that I am
And I return love to the universe
Through the openness of my heart
And the authenticity of my words, actions, and deeds
So that it may cause a ripple, that creates a wave
That changes every thing, in every place, for all time.

Andy Smith, 26 March 2015

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Back In Auckland Where The Real Adventure Begins

Today, returning to Auckland left me with an odd feeling. It felt like the end of my trip and in a way, I suppose it was an end. As I caught a glimpse of the Auckland Sky Tower again it felt a little like a home coming. But this was no home coming. This is not even the end. My return to Auckland marks only the beginning of the real adventure.

My tour of Northland, the most northerly region of New Zealand was never my intended route. It was rather forced on me by circumstances and events beyond my control (Broken Promises and a Change of Plans). That said, it has proven a fantastic opportunity to become acquainted with the rigours of cycle touring and I am happy to have had the experience. I now realise that this was a blessing in disguise. A much needed short introduction into the world of cycling long distances, carrying all of your belongings with you.

During these two weeks, I have cycled some 700km (411 miles), I've visited some of the most historical places in all of New Zealand, I've met some incredible and wonderful people, I've heard some fascinating life stories, I've made new friends, I became trapped by the tail end of a cyclonic weather system, and I've been woken in the dead of night by the wailing of a tsunami warning siren. It feels special and it is special. Even though I have a lot further to cycle, in fact, I have only touched the tip of the iceberg so far, I have learned much about what it takes to cycle tour and I have learned much about myself in the process.  Even if I were to stop now, I would see these two weeks as an achievement, but I do not want to stop now.  This is still only the beginning.

Not everything has been as I would have hoped and there have been difficult days and moments. My ride from Ruakaka up to Russell (Headwind, Hills and a Town Too Far), a distance of some 136km stands out. That day taught me much, not least that I am only human, that I am far from being perfect, and that I am not invincible.  Although I reached my destination, it was a day that frightened me, that left me shaken and broken, and wondering whether I could actually accomplish my dream. I needed that day. It was a learning day and it allowed me to set more sensible and realistic goals. It is also not as easy to free camp (pitching your tent in unofficial places) as I had thought. I haven't managed to free camp once so far and to be honest, I haven't felt the need. It remains on my to do list and until I do it, I will not feel as though I have experienced the adventure that I came here seeking.

I've experienced one near miss with traffic so far, which happened today on my way back down to Auckland. I was in good rhythm and speed when a car decided to cut left across the cycle lane, pull into a gas station right in front of me and I had no option other than to make a sudden swerve around the car, out into the road.  Unsighted by the car and unbeknown to me, the cycle lane ended abruptly on the other side of the gas station entrance. As I cut back in to what I thought would be the cycle lane once again, I had no time to react as I bumped heavily into a kerb (curb) stone. My front wheel bore the impact and both of my front panniers were bumped off, one of them ending up in the road, the other on the pavement. I stayed upright and stopped to recover my things before any passing cars could flatten the contents of the pannier. It's always amazing how the people who create these incidents remain completely oblivious to what is going on around them, either that or they choose to stare straight ahead, in the hope that what they do not see, cannot really be happening. With this one exception, I've enjoyed some good days on the road among heavy traffic, even finding that the notorious State Highway 1 and the logging trucks that use it, is actually not as bad as I had read, and had been led to believe.

Two weeks down, ten more weeks to come. I know that I have much to learn and to discover on this trip. If there was one thing I knew, that has now become a certainty in my mind, it is this: I love New Zealand. I did from the moment I first arrived here as a green, solo traveller in June 2004 and ever since then, it has remained deeply and firmly rooted in my heart. This trip, my third time in New Zealand (I was a student here for three years between 2007 and 2010) has so far done nothing to change my opinion and has only cemented my feelings.

What then, will the next ten weeks hold for me? Other than a lot of kilometres and miles sat on the saddle of my bicycle, I do not know. And that is the very thing that I came here to find. I came here to find all that I did not know, and that is the adventure. This is what frees the heart and allows the soul to grow. This is what allows the light to shine forth. This is not just a cycle tour, this is a journey and a story of love.  I am giving myself the ultimate gift, by pursuing my dream and following my heart.

The road goes ever on. All that we can do is to choose the manner of our walking.

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What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

That's the question that has come to my mind over the last few days.  What have I gotten myself into?  Now I think about it, and I was thinking about it on my walk over here to the cafe, perhaps the question is not so much what, but rather why?  Why have I gotten myself into this situation?  I guess before we could begin to answer the question, it is necessary to define the subject matter.

It's Sunday 29 December.  This means that I am now less than two weeks away from my embarkation on my next adventure.  Thirteen days more and I will once again leave England after yet another short stay, a stay that is either too long or too short - I can never quite decide which - and I'll head off to New Zealand to begin my cycle tour adventure.  In less than three weeks, I should be on the road, spinning those pedals that turn the cranks that turn the wheels, that will speed me along the roads.  Exciting isn't it?  A dream realised.  Surely this is the epitome of what life is all about.  Throwing oneself into the unknown and the challenge of never being sure of what each day will bring.  It does not matter how many times I have done this now, each time the departure date approaches, and for some reason that tick to thirteen days seems to be the event trigger more than any other, I begin to grow concerned, I start to fret about what it is that I am doing, and why I am going to do it.

I believe it is the same for everyone.  No matter what they will tell you, no matter how gung-ho and cock sure they appear to be, I have little doubt that underneath there lies a swirling, tumultuous flow of worry, a constant and raging stream of concerns, that are held in check only by the dam of outer calmness.  Columbus, Cook, Scott, Shackleton, Earhart, Hilary, Armstrong (of the Neil variety), Yeager, Baumgartner and any one else you may wish to include in such exulted company, I can guarantee that although they may have appeared to be the perfect picture of composed, mill pond surface calmness, below that exterior lurked the questions, the fears, the doubts, and the constant nagging of why am I doing this and what have I gotten myself into?

It's only natural.  I know that.  I also know that it is going to be okay.  My own adventure is nothing compared to some, but it is my own adventure, my own decision to step outside of my comfort zone, to go off in exploration and in search, to confront my fears, to extend myself, to find out who I am, to know what mettle lurks under my flesh.  No matter how seemingly small and insignificant your own adventure may appear to some, to the person at the centre of that story, it is the greatest undertaking in the history of humanity.  Imagine for a moment a person who suffers from acute agoraphobia.  To this person, even opening the front door of their house can seem the most daunting decision to take, let alone stepping across the threshold and leaving the secure confines of their home.

Road To Nowhere by Talking Heads has just begun to play on the sound system of cafe.  Is it coincidence that I happen to love this song?  Doesn't road to nowhere sum up my journey, all of our journeys?  We're walking our paths, thinking that we are headed some place special, striving to get to a certain point, mulling over decisions that we believe to be of the utmost importance, but in reality, we're all headed to exactly the same place, no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try.  That may lead you to ask, well then, why bother at all?  And the answer to that my friend is that it is the journey that is the making, it is the space between two places and the manner in which we cross that space that counts.  It is that crossing between points that generates experiences and memories and those are the very things that define us, that change us, that allow us to discover who we are, who we were truly meant to be.  It is the crossing of this distance, no matter how great, no matter how small, that reveals our inner truth and shows us the true path.

Oddly enough, the thought generated by that song has answered the questions hasn't it?  What did I get myself into and why have I gotten myself into it?  Answer: because if I do not, then I will never know my answer.  If I do not, I will never grow my soul.  If I do not, I will never experience the magic that is created when a person goes off in search of adventure and daring.  If I do not, I will reach the end of my days and I will wonder what could have been.  If I do not, I will be left with a regret, knowing full well that I had the means necessary to achieve my dreams and I chose an early death instead.  And why would anyone chose an early death when there is so much life out there, within your grasp, when all you have to do is to stretch out an arm, reach out with your finger tips and grab a hold?  I choose to grasp onto life.  I choose to see the miracles and the magic of a life lived.  And just as Renton said at the end of Trainspotting, "Choose life." Amen Renton, amen.

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The End Is Only The Beginning

The end is really only the beginning.  That's certainly one way to look at it.  As one moment ends, we find ourselves already in the midst of another.  Countless millions of moments that together make up a life story.  One moment is all it takes to change the world, to alter the path of destiny.  One moment, one opportunity, one life.  It always comes down to that one single moment, a point at which your future is being decided, even if you are not aware of the consequences that surround you, of the swirling mass of possibilities that are lining up, taking order, falling into place.  And on we go, oblivious, until with hindsight, we look back down the road, and there, basking in all its glory, finally revealed to even the most blinkered of eyes, is that one pivotal moment that shook your world, that altered the course of your destiny and that brought you to the point at which you are now.  Sitting in a cafe in a seaside town in England, on a cold, wet, and dreary December day, staring out of the window at all of the activity in the street outside.

My time in Costa Rica has ended.  In fact, it was over on 5 December, as the plane hurtled down the runway of San Jose airport, as the wings lifted with the air velocity and pressure differential, and the wheels touched Costa Rican tarmac for the last time that day.  Airborne and with it, my future changed, it shifted.  Plans that had been made started to become a reality, thoughts, electronic pulses stored in my brain, turned into tangible occurrences.  This journey across the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans represented both an ending and a beginning.  This is life.

In death comes life.  Perhaps, with it being the day before Christmas, my thoughts turn to Jesus, which makes me think of the Resurrection.  "In death, I become life." (I just Googled that phrase in the belief that someone must have said it before, but my search brings forth no such findings.  So, I am taking it as my own creation.)  In other words, I must die before life comes again.  That is the way of our dreams.  We realise one dream and that dream must end before another can come to fruition. 

I have died many times in my life, I have experienced many endings.  With each cycle, I have changed, perhaps imperceptibly so, but I know that the person who began this odyssey into the unknown is not the same person who sits here in this cafe today.  How could I be?  I have seen and experienced too much.  I have opened myself up, I have given myself over to life, to the possibilities of something more, I have witnessed miracles, known people and cultures, suffered, cried, loved, and laughed.  Every thing and every person I have ever had contact with is some how now inside of me.  Maybe this is how we grow as people?  We internalise everything with which we come into contact and every emotion with which we experience.  We take a part of it all, a part of life and we bring that within.  At the same time, we are imparting something of ourselves to each person, to each experience.  Our soul is nourished and in turn nourishes those who we meet.  With each experience, we leave behind a trace of our soul, a signature that lasts an eternity, intrinsically linked to the time, to the place and to the participants.

Maybe what I am talking about today is the soul of life.  What if all of life shared a single soul?  One elemental force that linked every thing to every thing else.  People, animals, birds, fish, trees, shrubs, grasses, oceans, rivers, rocks, mountains, sand, clouds, rain, sun, moon, stars, air, Earth.  It's all of life in perfect balance, the soul is one, it is whole.  It leads me to something I have written before, "I am in everything and everything is in me."  I am in no doubt that when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), what he was referring to was that every single one of us has the power within us.  In the heart lies the truth.  In the heart lies the way.  In the heart lies the life.  It is in our hearts that the power to become all that we were born to be is to be found.

Well, as always, I begin to write, unsure of where I will go and something always comes.  The flow of the mind is often a surprise to me and that is why I love to sit in a cafe and write.  This will probably be my last post of 2013 and I look forward to continuing the journey in 2014.  I hope that you will stay with me as we each travel down our own unique path.  It all begins again on 1 January. A turning of the page. A new chapter to be written.  An ending and a beginning.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all.

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Forced Changes Bring New Light

I've been spending the last few days working intensively on my plans for the New Zealand bike tour.  Time is passing very quickly and, as is usual, the closer a date nears, the faster it seems that time propels you towards it.  My aim has been to ensure that the majority of the planning phase was completed before I head back to England in early December.  I have never planned for an adventure of this nature and magnitude before and although I have made a great deal of research and progress with my own plans, there is one nagging question that is a constant companion to me: what have I missed? 

Planning for an adventure is not easy.  That is how I wish to think of this latest chapter in my life story, an adventure.  It is the adventure that I have longed for all of my life.  When I think on it, it reminds me of my first foray into travelling and backpacking.  Eight years ago (is it really so long ago already?), when I headed off to Thailand with my partner, I had no idea what I was doing.  Due to various physical and psychological reasons, I had not prepared for the trip as I should have done and as a consequence, and I stumbled blindly in the dark, feeling afraid, overwhelmed and lost for the first two or three weeks, until I began to find my feet and come to terms with it all.  It was a truly horrible and daunting experience, and not one that I ever wish to repeat.  Preparation is key and cannot be underestimated. 

Despite having to deal with the aftermath of the 'bomb' that was dropped on me (please see my previous post entitled Broken Promises and a Change of Plans) and all that went with it, I have made some great progress in my planning endeavours.  The ripples of that shock spread far and wide and affected almost all of my entire planning.  The only part of the planning left unscathed was my route plan for the South Island.   I have been extremely fortunate though and despite this setback, I have managed to rectify everything.  I've see it as rather fortuitous in some ways.  I am now able to begin my cycle tour nineteen days earlier, which means I'll be cycling for a greater part of the New Zealand summer, which more importantly means that I'll now avoid the need for cycling in the midst of a Kiwi autumn.  The bottom line: more sun, more warmth, and in theory at least, less rain.

The on-coming autumn was the major factor in my decision to begin my original tour route in the South Island, starting at Picton, and to finishing in the north in Auckland.  I designed it in this way to ensure that I would complete the most southerly part of the ride before the cold Antarctic winds began sweeping up from the south, bringing their icy blasts.  As I am picking up my rental bike in Auckland, this meant jumping on a train with the bike and panniers, heading straight down to Wellington, and making the ferry crossing of the Cook Strait, over to Picton.  This is now avoided and I'll begin my tour, by pedalling away from Auckland.

This South Island first plan was far from ideal as it meant heading back up from Wellington to Auckland, with huge zigzags cutting across the country, so that I could take in all of the places that I wish to see.  With the revised route, I'll cycle down the west side of North Island to Wellington, and then after my South Island section is complete, I'll head back up mostly on the east side to finish in Auckland.

Not everything has been as I would have wished though.  With the new start date forced on me, I contacted Cycle Auckland to see if I could rent the Cannondale 2 earlier.  The medium frame Cannondale was not available until 3 February at the earliest.  Despite the dropped bomb, I actually saw this as my first major stumbling block - funny how the mind works.  In its place, they were able to offer a Scott Sportster, but I knew from my research, that this was not a true touring bike.  Then those great people at Cycle Auckland came up with another suggestion.  They would hold both a Scott Sportster (medium) and a Cannondale 2 (large) for me and I could take which ever of the two suited me best.  They also suggested that I make a short tour of the Northland area first, so that I could switch over to the medium Cannondale on my way back through Auckland before I headed south.  Initially, I was not too keen on this plan but I could see nothing else for it.

I had always envisioned myself beginning my tour by pedalling away from civilisation and out on to the open roads, where I would find myself and discover just exactly what cycle touring is all about.  Now, I would have to leave Auckland only to return again, effectively breaking up my tour.  But, after some thought, I made this work for me.  The North Land region of New Zealand is home to the Bay of Islands, a place I have only previously seen in photographs and not visited.  And the Bay of Islands is the jump of point for scuba diving the Poor Knight Islands, one of the greatest dive sites of the world's oceans (Jacques Cousteau had it in his top ten).  Why then not build in a few days stop at Paihia, dive the Poor Knights and tick off one of the places from my personal bucket list of dive locations?  Perfect.  There is always a silver lining, the trick to finding it is to stop focusing on what is past and has gone wrong, and, with a mind clear of negativity, to look at what is and what will be.

The Bay of Islands (Lonely Planet images)

I've also spent these last days researching tents. Who knew how time consuming and complicated that was going to be!  It is my plan to spend as much time sleeping in a tent as is possible.  For a trip of three months, it is not financially viable for me to spend each night in a hostel, motel, or hotel bed.  The tent will more than pay for itself.  The nature of cycle touring New Zealand means that I will find myself in some very rural areas where locating accommodation would not be possible.  Even with all of the best planning, something will inevitably go wrong, and I could find myself stuck in the middle of nowhere as night begins to fall.  I must have a contingency plan for this possibility. Perhaps though, the main reason why I am taking a tent, is to make this a real adventure.  It has to be this way.  It was always going to be this way.  Wherever I am able, I plan on some wild camping, that is unofficial tent pitching on public or private land that has not been designated an official camping site.  I know that partly this will be out of necessity, but also, there is this voice inside of me that has always yearned for adventure and for the chance to roam free.

I have decided to write a separate post about the range of tents on offer and how I narrowed down the choices and made my selection.  It is quite bewildering how many types, manufacturers and differing opinions are out there.  I am also giving some thought to whether I begin a separate blog site for my cycle tour (Cycling The One True Path) or I continue to write here.  This blog is about life on the path and I do not wish to dilute it with posts about more mundane matters such as bicycles and tents.  But the path is the path, right?  The jury is still out on this one.

What I have learned over the last weeks is that setbacks will always occur, they are inevitable.  When we hold a vision for our future, a dream in our minds, and something goes wrong, this is an opportunity.  Here is a chance to test your mettle and your resolve.  A dream formed in the heart with strands from the fibres of your soul, that's a dream that can never die.  From each setback, we learn.  When we learn, we grow.  As we grow, so too do we evolve.  As we evolve, then we walk the path, our one true path, the path that takes us to the light of ourselves.  And that is the light of love.   

_________________________     

The Wind Of Change

The wind listened intently.  It so loved to hear the moon and the sun arguing, as they constantly did, over which was the best.  As it listened, it could hear the moon talking.

"I'm telling you Sun, people look at me and they always see something different. It depends on the how I'm feeling.  There are some evenings when I only want to show a small slither of myself, or perhaps I'll put out half of my face and keep the other half shrouded in darkness to create intrigue.  And then some nights, I show everything and light up the world below with my radiant happiness."

"Oh Moon, you are so foolish!", laughed the Sun, as it thought of the Moon's stupidity.

"Well, well...", flustered the Moon, "...and just how do you change Sun? You're always burning full and bright.  You're the constant, boring ever presence!"

The sun sighed at the foolishness of the moon.  "Oh my dear friend.  It is I who brings subtle change by my movements.  When I am furthest away from the Earth, it is I who brings the long dark, cold of winter and the gloom to the hearts of all people.  It is I, who chooses when to usher in the buds of spring and new life, and to bring the joy and hope.  It is I, the glorious Sun, who brings the heat of summer, the long, seemingly endless days at the beach, when the hearts of the people begin to dream of far away places.  And it is I also, who begins the end of all things by moving slowly away again.  I am change!"

The Sun beamed more brightly at that moment, secure in the knowledge that once again, it had beaten the moon.  The moon fell silent and decided that coming night it could not show its face, and would keep it hidden behind the clouds.   The wind smiled a knowing smile and blew on.  It knew that it was only the wind who truly created change.  It was the wind that brought the hints and smells of the oceans, the deserts, the mountains, and of far off places, that began the dreams, and that sowed the seeds of change in the hearts of the people.  And for those few, those courageous few that dared, the wind touched their hearts, and set their feet to walking their one true path.

The wind blew harder that day and gusted around and about, touching more hearts than usual, such was its joy at knowing that once more, it was stronger than the sun and the moon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Today, I want to write about change, or rather, the change that I am bringing to my own life.  For a long time, there is a dream that I have held in my heart, it is a dream that erupts and bursts forth every time that I am sitting on the saddle of a bicycle, pounding my legs up and down, becoming lost in a rhythm of my own making.  I've read books by people who have done it, I've seen for myself people out on the road, as I have driven by in a car, wishing more than anything that I could exchange my comfortable air-conditioned environment, for their saddle, and earlier this year, I met someone who was undertaking the very adventure of which I have dreamed.  That dream is to make an epic cycle tour of some far off place.  The bicycle, the road and me, joined in a trinity of my own making.

Why now?  If you believe that a moment will come, when all the stars are in magical alignment, when every single event culminates at exactly the right time and place, creating for you the perfect opportunity, then I'm sorry to inform you that you could not be more wrong.  There is never a right time to begin a dream.  The time becomes the right time when you choose to make it the right time.  You can spend all of your life waiting for the perfect moment to arrive, it never will.  There will always be some task that needs to be done, a perceived loyalty to a job that you cannot quit, a commitment to a family member or a friend, you'll tell yourself that you need to save more money first, that you need more preparation time, that you'll do it next year.  You won't.  This will continue on and on until one day, as you wake up and lie on your bed feeling the old age in your bones, you will know that it is too late, that the moment is gone and has become lost forever.  To achieve a dream takes one single moment of... well what exactly?

Foolhardiness, idiocy, stupidity, bravery, courage, and strength.  All of these traits combine at a given point in time, at a single moment when your future life hangs in the balance.  At that one instant, you have a simple choice to make: do, or do not.  What this comes down to is whether you will choose to let your dream go on only ever being a dream, existing only in your mind, or whether you will seize upon the moment, and begin to turn that dream into a living reality.  There is no secret, no mystical formula, nothing special that distinguishes those of us who follow our dreams from those that do not.  It is a fallacy to believe that we are any different to those that do not pursue their dreams.  We are just the people that act, that see the opportunity and take it, because we understand the consequences of not doing so, and we fear to live a life full of what might have been.

Out of no where, an opportunity came to me, and for whatever reason, I was presented with a chance to do something else.  I knew the moment that it came, that I would take it.  There was no hesitancy, no moment of doubt, no questions that needed to be asked.  As with all of life, one thing inevitably leads to another. Imagine for a moment a room with a single door.  You can choose to open that door and step through it into whatever that awaits you on the the other side, or you can remain safe and secure within the four walls of the room, looking at the door and always wondering.  At the moment that you open the door and take that first step through to the other side, you discover an infinite number of possibilities.  Once you step outside, you give yourself the chance for anything to happen.  And it does.

After the initial decision was made to leave Costa Rica behind, to say goodbye to these rich shores that have been so good to me, that have given me some of the most amazing and incredible moments of my life, I found that I could at last make another of my dreams a reality.  At the beginning of December, I will make a long overdue journey back to England, to visit my family and to catch up with old friends, before I head off again in January, bound for the shores of New Zealand.  It will be in New Zealand that I will put into motion my dream of cycle touring.  What better place is there for my first foray into this new adventure, than a country that I know well, that has a modern infrastructure, speaks the same language (well mostly), and that offers miles of open roads and some of the most beautiful and stunning scenery on the planet?  I personally can think of no where better.

It will not be my first time to New Zealand.  I first went for a whistle stop, three week vacation in June 2004, touring both North and South Islands by car.  It was my first ever solo venture, a trial run of sorts to test myself and my abilities to travel alone.  I returned in January 2007, this time as an international student, enrolled on a degree program at Victoria University of Wellington.  I graduated in February 2010, and left New Zealand in April that same year, in pursuit of a different opportunity and dream.  New Zealand is in my blood and I am extremely happy to be returning there, this time to see so much more of that amazing country, at the slow pace from a saddle of a bicycle.

The winds of change blow.  When they do, it is for you to decide whether to act on their calling, or whether you will let them pass you by.  Dreams will always remain dreams unless you seize on the opportunities that come your way.  From one opportunity seized, others too will come.  This is the law of favourability, as the universe is kind to those that seek to turn their dreams into reality.  Once you are out there, walking on a path of your own making, your eyes and heart are truly open to life, and as such, further opportunities will come your way.  When the wind blows answer its call, take that step and allow change to wash over you.

 _________________________

Unrequited Love And Why I Deserve Better

Love, or rather unrequited love.  That's the stuff of which tragedies are made.  It's a hopeless situation when you're in love with someone and they do not return that love.  It's a self-inflicted, soul destroying, torture of epic proportions, that can have only one possible outcome.  And as if this were not enough, the path of unrequited love is fraught with the very serious danger of losing yourself entirely in a one-sided love affair that will consume you and that will devour your own soul, utterly.  It is a path that will eventually, not only break your heart, but destroy your heart entirely.  Trust me, I've been there, I know.

Why would someone put them self through this?  After all, unrequited love is a truly masochistic pastime.  It defies sound reasoning and is devoid of any semblance of logic.  One would have to be mad to do such a thing, wouldn't they?  The answer is of course, that love is not formed in the head, it is created with the heart.  With anything that is of the heart, it in tinged with a touch of madness.  The heart doesn't listen to reason, sound judgement and logic.  The heart flies free on a whim, it grasps hold of dreams and it speaks of love.  And love, once it has you in its clutches, is a very hard beast to escape.  The heart acts of its own free will, it does as it pleases, and if you allow it, it will lead you, or rather, it will pull you along at breakneck speed, right on down the path of love.  Once it begins, it becomes an unstoppable force, propelling you further and deeper, ever on, and like the light from a black hole, it is not possible to fight, nor flee the pull of its gravity.

In my own life, I have suffered greatly in the pursuit of what I believed at the time to have been love.  Of course, it could never have been true love, since the feelings were only on my side, a constant stream of one way love, projected outwards and very little of anything received in return.  All I ever did was to bang my head against the proverbial brick wall.  There was no way through, no matter how hard I tried.  The perverseness of the situation was that the more resistance I met, the harder I pushed and the more determined I became to succeed.  Something propelled me forward, it drove me ever on, in the process I took many knocks on the chin, but I just kept jumping right back in there.  My perseverance was surely going to pay off, my demonstration of my commitment and determination would succeed, after all, what woman doesn't want a man who will fight for her love tooth and nail? 

How did I ever get myself into these situations, and more importantly, why would I allow this to happen?  Yes, that is deliberately plural, for I have found myself in these situations on several occasions.  Each time I said it would be different, I would succeed, that I had learned the lessons of my previous failures.  I was wrong.  Even when I did not want to become involved, even when I understood clearly that the situation would be toxic to me, some how, at a certain point in time, I discovered that it was already too late - I was caught, unbeknown to me, my heart had secretly been at work.

I have never found love easy to come by.  I've spent long periods of time without even a hint of a romantic encounter.  It's was never that I was not looking, I always was, but opportunities were few and far between.  I lived my life with the constant feeling of being unlovable, I viewed myself as unattractive, and I had a shyness around women, a feeling that they would never find me remotely interesting.  Words would catch in my throat, nothing would come out.  If opportunities had been there, I never saw them because I could never believe someone would be interested in me.  This is exactly why, when someone did show me just a hint of interest, I jumped at it and seized upon it, grasping on and holding tight, even if that meant that the situation was far from ideal.  When one of these women told me that they had a barrier to letting someone in, a barrier to love because of the hurt caused by a previous relationship, or that they already had a boyfriend, I told myself that I just needed to be patient, that eventually they would see the qualities I could offer, that I was the right person for them and eventually they would see it too.

Looking back, I suppose I could view these situations as a form of teasing.  I was being given just enough attention to keep me interested, but never being given anything close to anything truly meaningful.  I was dangling on a thread and they were toying with me.  And like an idiot, I stayed there and let them do it.  It was wholly unfair of these women to do that to me, but perhaps they did not know, nor did they understand my vulnerabilities.  How could they have known, since I never showed them, and I did not know them myself.  Each one of these women must have seen something in me, each must have wanted something, needed some emotional connection that was lacking in their current life and relationship, if they were having one.  I became the person that would fill that void for them, perhaps even to reaffirm that the person they were with was right for them, to get them through a sticky patch.  It just occurred to me that I had a complete lack of respect and sense of dignity for myself.  This was all I believed I was worth.  No.  This is all the love that I believed I was worth.

Each time one of these situations arose, I invested great amounts of time and effort, giving up my own life in the process, and sacrificing time with friends and family in the pursuit of this conquest.  All my thoughts were bent on it.  The longer that the situation persisted, the more it would slowly and inevitably consume me, until I was utterly lost in it.  I firmly believed that eventually my love and the attention that I was giving would break down any resistance to me, that I would over come the barrier to mutual love.  I imagined it to be like water slowly eroding away rock until given enough time, the rock wears away, the dam breaks, and the water flows free.  Of course, I was wrong.  At some juncture, out of a huge frustration and desperation, I would push as hard as I could and I would bring everything to a head.  I could take it no more, it was win or bust. And bust it was every time, and I was inevitably left alone, nursing my broken heart once more.

There is perhaps another reason why I let these situations occur in my life and it was only last year that I finally uncovered this truth: I have always felt that I was undeserving of love.  With this knowledge, I have been able to clearly see where I have gone wrong throughout my life.  It makes it abundantly clear to me why I pursued and persisted in these situations that were extremely damaging to me and that never had a chance of working out.  I felt I was wholly unworthy of being loved in the right way, the true way, and so I immersed myself in a toxic and negative kind of love, because that was the kind that I believed myself to be deserving.  My life has been an endless pursuit of love in one form or another and I am sure that this is also a contributing factor to why I settled for something less than perfect.  I just needed something, anything, just some form of attention and to know that I was wanted - something for which I have been bereft my entire life.  When I think about it now, I rue the time that I lost in these situations, time that I could have spent with someone who actually accepted me for the person that I am and who would give their love freely to me.  I might have met them, if I had not been so completely and hopelessly caught up in the wrong kind of love with someone who did not truly want me.  I have been such a fool, but I cannot regret my actions, since they brought me to here and to now, and to the person that I have become.

And here I am.  Finally I understand all of this.  I know now why I did these things, why I put myself through such torture and torment.  I have learned to love myself, to forgive myself and perhaps more importantly, to accept myself.  I am at last at the place where I needed to be in order to discover the right kind of love, the kind of love for which I am deserving.  I will never allow myself to go down the road of unrequited love again.  I will never be tricked into following that path.  For I am worthy of being loved and if you do not see that, then you have no place in my life.  Do not waste my time. Don't even try it.  Unrequited love is the path of doom, and I for one, am done with that path forever.  I know that somewhere out there, there is a person that carries the right kind of love and who wants to give that freely, with no impediment.  She is searching for me, seeking me out, as I am seeking for her.  Her heart calls, as mine calls.  It is only a matter of time and circumstance, because I know that we will meet.  

~ ~ ~

Unrequited Love Poem

On the bed

Lost and lonely

There I lie

Listening to the falling rain

Drops of life

Pitter patter to the ground

Dejected, rejected

It's happened again

I let myself belief

What a fool!

Always a fool

Dear precious heart

Why?

Do we never learn

Will we ever learn?

Or to go on

Blindly stumbling

In the dark

The long cold night

It bites at us

Seeps through our skin

A wind blows

Tinged with bitterness

I don't regret

Won't regret

That I tried

I believed

And here I am

Again

Alone

With the rain

That falls in my heart

And one drop

Runs down my cheek.

  _________________________

A Poem Called Me

This morning, words came to me in a fast flow that, from one single broken sentence, quickly evolved itself into a poem.  I called it simply, Me.  These words flowed straight from my heart and fell from my fingertips in a cascade of droplets.  Perhaps here, I am, revealed on this page, my simpleness thrown wide open to all.  I hope you will like it.

Me

I am

Truly

An enigma

All things

Are found in me

And at the heart

There I lie

The real me

The true me

One heart

One soul

One life

One path

One love

One

Like all things

The beginning

The end

Complete and whole

Me.

  _________________________

 

The Only Way To Discover True Happiness

The sound reverberates through the ocean. It's strong and powerful, like a bow pulled achingly slowly across the strings of a double bass, a deep, sonorous tone, that resonates through the water.  Powerful and strong, definitely, but there is something else too.  It's hauntingly beautiful, majestic, it feels almost sad, like the call of a broken heart reaching out across the vastness of space and time for its lost love.  But this is no broken hearted soul, this is the call of a humpback whale and I am lucky to find myself here, immersed under the ocean, bearing witness to this miracle of life.  Is it a question of luck, or is it perhaps something else that brought me to this moment of incredible beauty?

Some days I wonder.  No, let me say that again.  Every day I wonder, but there are some moments when I think to myself whether there is something special about me and what I have done with my life.  I really do not think so.  I am no braggart, in fact, I am nothing if not humble about everything that has happened to me.  My life has been mixed.  I've suffered some debilitating lows, perhaps too many, too often.  I am no different to most in that.  Each time I found myself in those situations, something has spoken to me, called me back from the bleakness, pulled my eyes around to see the small flicker of light, a flame that might wax and wain, but will never be truly extinguished.  It is my heart that called to me and it always spoke to me in these moments of despair, and when it did, it spoke to me of hope.

I clung to hope.  Sometimes desperately, as if I were cast adrift in the vast dizziness of open space, and this one small thing was all that kept me from falling into utter darkness.  There were times when I contemplated suicide, when I thought that perhaps it would be the easier option, the way out.  I felt in these moments that my life would never amount to anything, that I was desperately unlucky in life, destined to live a cold and lonely existence, full of sadness, full of regret for not being all that I could be, if only I had the chance.  The problem with depression, and for anyone who is unfortunate to have been there, is that you are swallowed by it, utterly and completely.  Hopelessness takes a firm hold and there seems to be nothing that you can do, even though there are answers and there are ways out of the abyss of darkness, back to the light once more.

What I failed to understand was that I was the key.  My happiness didn't depend on someone else, it depended on one person, and one person only: me.  I always looked to someone else to make me happy.  I thought that the path to my happiness was going to be found in love for another person, that this was what would make me finally fulfilled in my life.  I put all of my efforts into this one thing and in the process of doing so, I forgot about myself, my true self.  Each time I met someone, I wanted to please them, I wanted desperately to make the relationship work, and I would alter myself to fit to the other person.  I stopped being the real me and I become some other form of myself, an altered state that could only ever be temporary.  That could never work in the long term because at some point, my true self would begin to resurrect itself, to assert itself once more, to shake off the shackles in which I had bound it.  As I write this, I've just had this realistion: that I did exactly the same with everyone.  I altered myself to fit with the preconceived ideas I had about how I should act.  I did it with my parents, my brother and my sister, with friends, teachers, colleagues.  It was not until I moved overseas that I was able to find the real me and to have the confidence to let him come out.  That process began in Budapest and it continued through the years that followed, as I allowed my true self to emerge from its cocoon.  It is when I do the things I love, that I truly become myself, when I let my true soul fly free.  

The path to true happiness is simple.  Be yourself.  It sounds simple enough, but it is not.  I could not be my true self until I began to walk my path, my true path.  In the moment that I did, everything changed.  I chose to follow the voice of my heart, I listened to my inner voice, the voice that will only ever guide you true.  My luck changed, not because of anything that any one else did, not because the stars aligned above me, it changed simply because I opened myself up to the possibilities of life.  And the moment that I did that, life found me and enclosed me in all its wonder.

I am no different to anyone else, I do not see myself as special, nor do I possess a unique gift or talent.  What I have done, you can also achieve.  Everyone has this potential.  You too have this ability.  Do not be afraid to be your true self.  The person that you find will surprise and amaze you.  Listen to your heart.  Hear its message and its call and do not be afraid to follow it.  Wherever it takes you, it will change you forever and will give you the opportunity to discover true happiness.  Forget what others will tell you of the foolishness of your idea and plans, forget what the society tries to tell you is the right way to live a life.  There is only truly ever one way, and that is the way of your heart.  Go follow it.   

_________________________

Why You Must Dare To Escape Your Comfort Zone

Lately, I have found myself at a fork in the road.  In truth, I've been here for some time, staring blankly down each path that lies before me, attempting to figure out which is the right one, agonising over which option is most suitable, and utterly unable to decide which is the path that I should take.  Yet, no matter how hard I stared, trying in vain to see through the darkness that obscures each of these futures, I have been unable to fathom the direction in which I need to go.  For some time, I have reasoned with myself that it has been because I was unsure, seeing equal merit in each one, knowing that they all held the promise of the future.  That was until today, when a sudden moment of clarity and insight dawned upon me.  The reason I have not moved forward from the place where I am is because of one reason only: I am afraid.

You see, my life has become far too comfortable.  Take now, this moment for example.  It's 6:04am, I'm sitting up in bed, daylight from an already risen sun streaming in through the window, I'm listening to the early morning calls of the exotic birds drifting in from outside, I've got a cup of freshly brewed Costa Rican coffee sitting on the bedside table next to me, my laptop sits on my lap as I type this blog post, and in another browser tab, I'm following the early football kick-off in the Premier League on the BBC sport website from back in England.  Later on, around 9am, I'll take a leisurely bike ride the mile or so down to work, where I'll spend most of the day sitting down at the hotel, chatting, surfing the web, maybe take a swim in the pool or ocean, and generally not do very much, since it's low season here, and there are not many guests around.  This is not exactly a taxing life.  Sure, when work gets busy, it can be full-on, long, physically and mentally demanding and tiring days, but the balance of that is the couple of hours or more I get to spend under the ocean, in my absolute element.  This is perhaps the life of which I always dreamed.

And that is the problem right there.  It is the life that I have always wanted.  I attained my dream, so I should be happy, because that is what I tell everyone else, that the path to true happiness lies in seeking out and attaining your dreams.  Am I now advocating that everything I spoke of before, that everything in which I have believed and gambled on, was nothing other than a falsehood, one of life's lies?  I have been happy.  Very happy. I still am.  I have no need to change where I am or what I am doing.  Diving under the ocean here, with a tank of air strapped to my back, my only means of survival, gives me the utmost pleasure.  Simply stated: I love it.  The vast array of life, from the smallest nudibranch to the graceful ease of a manta ray, the seasonal changes, the unpredictability of the ocean conditions, the chance to see some of the most incredible sights, these are the reasons why I love it.  My dream has been fulfilled.  It's time for a new one.

I have learned that I cannot stay still.  At first, I believed that the cause of my constant need for change was a lack of commitment to any one thing.  I tended to view this in a negative way, as if there was something wrong with me, that I had a phobia of commitment.  What I came to realise was that my heart has been ever urging me on, never letting me settle, driving me forward in search of each new adventure.  My heart is a wild beast and it is hard to tame.  And like all wild beasts, I believe that their rightful place is being free, to wander wherever their will takes them.  There are many things that I want to achieve in this life, many places that I wish to visit, many things that I wish to experience.  I have always known it.  As a young boy, I had a strong urge for adventure, that urge exists in my heart still.  I have to grow and learn, my heart demands it of me.  My whole life has been a series of progressions, of learning experiences, academically as well as psychologically.  I have to continue to do this, until my heart tells me it is time to stop, that at long last, we have found our home.

This is why I find myself at the fork in my path.  I have been looking for something new.  To step away from the path that I am on, to change my direction once more.  But I have felt a great reluctance to change.  At first, I firmly believed it was because none of my options were the right ones for me.  Good options, but not quite right.  Being heartstrong means that I have to feel it in my heart, or I am just nor there.  I could feel none of my options in my heart, and so I knew that I needed to wait a little longer and the right choice would present itself to me at the right moment.  And it did.  I wrote of my moment of epiphany last week in my post, Knowing The Path.  Yet, even after experiencing this moment, there was something that held me back and that confused me.  After the euphoria of my epiphany came some moments of doubt.  Was this truly right for me?

I began to think that the answer was no.  That the choice to go and travel again was not my true path.  Almost, I began to believe this to be my truth, that is, until I had to make the jump across the border to Nicaragua this past week, to renew by tourist visa for Costa Rica.  In the process of travelling on public buses, of watching life unfold before me, of seeing exotic places, of being in some place different, of needing to push myself to know which bus to take and when, walking across the no mans land between neighbouring countries.  All of these things fired up my desire for travel.  Just a moment ago, as I was typing an earlier paragraph, a picture came floating into my mind of a far off distant shore, and in that moment, my heart leapt with a great sense of joy.  I know that it is what I wish to do.

Even though I feel the truth of it in my heart, I am afraid.  You see, I like my life, I like being in Costa Rica, I like having the chance of meeting with a manta ray or a huge school of devil rays.  I like my fully furnished apartment which contains everything that I need.  I like my landlord and next door neighbour, with his super cute, little two year old daughter and his crazy dog called Manny.  I like that I can go into the grocery store and be greeted by the people that work there, because they know me.  I like that I can cycle down the road and see people who wave at me, cars that hoot to acknowledge me, as I wave back.  I like that I can pop down to the bakery, just one minute away and buy freshly baked bread for my lunch.  I understand how life works around here and I like that.  I feel safe and I feel secure in this existence.  I could stay and perhaps I would be content.  Perhaps I might be.  Why risk change and a voyage into the unknown?

I believe that it is this fear of change that prevents many people from achieving their true dreams.  As humans, we enjoy comfort and security.  After achieving the necessities of life - air, water, food, shelter - security and comfort are next.  After all, we have it drilled into us from our earliest days that we must work hard, so we can take out a mortgage to buy a house, so that we can save for our retirement, save for our medical insurance, we must surround ourselves with the trappings of modern life, with possessions that add to our sense of security and comfort.  Unfortunately, the truth is, that we are never as secure as we might believe.  No one is immortal.  No one is immune to illness, disease, or accidents.  No matter how secure you believe your job to be, it is not.  No employee is indispensable.  When a company needs to cut back in order to maintain solvency and profitability, it will do so ruthlessly, without mercy, and the axe can fall on anyone.  I've seen it happen, I've seen first hand how technological advancements affected the workplace.  I was an instigator of those changes, I had a role in affecting the lives of others in a negative way.  It always left a sour taste in my mouth.     

We cling on to all that we have attained because it provides us with a sense of security.  It is the attainment of that security that causes us to sacrifice the dreams of our heart, to forsake the true path in life, the one that would provide us with the greatest sense of happiness and joy.  In this, I am no different.  I too feel the pull of that voice that urges security.  It is a deeply rooted, primeval urge to create security in your life.  But there is a stronger voice that beats inside of me.  The voice of my heart.

My heart rules me.  Its voice is so strong to me, that I cannot avoid its urges.  I must forsake my comfortable life if I wish to follow its call.  My fear of change almost paralysed me.  It almost held me tightly in its grip, telling me that here, in the life I lead now, I am happy and that I possess all that I need.  My heart never ceased its constant reassurances.  My heart knew that it needed to wait only for the right time, when I stood in a moment of silence, to act, and it did.  These other paths that I might take, perhaps I will come back to them on a different day.  Perhaps then, they will be the right paths for me, paths that my heart urges me to pursue.  Until that day, I must follow my heart along our present course.  And that is a course that leads me away from my comfort and security and into the unknown.

If I do not risk change, then I will never grow.  Life is a learning process, I see it as the process of evolving the soul.  Change allows us to learn and to grow.  Taking yourself outside of your comfort zone demonstrates just how much you are capable of, how much we are all capable of, and that always comes as a surprise, it is so much more than you can possibly imagine.  If I stay here on this path, I might be happy, I might enjoy my comfort and security, but I know there will come a time when I will have missed my opportunity of discovery, of growth and of learning.  And rather than the fear of losing my comfort and security, that is my greatest fear in this life.  That is why I must continue to live the life that I do, until the moment when I finally discover my home in another soul.  Perhaps finally then, I will be able to rest.  But I don't think so.  Perhaps I can sum it all up best with the words of Lord Alfred Tennyson:-

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

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My Crazy Life of Dreams

There are some words that you never think you'd find yourself saying.  Some years ago, in Brussels airport, I remarked to a colleague that I couldn't wait to get back home to Budapest.  Those words came straight out with out a second thought, without a moment's hesitation, and it was to mark a significant shift in the way that I saw my life.  Now, some years later, living a very different life, I found myself sitting here in Costa Rica, casually telling a friend that I was heading up to Nicaragua, to renew my tourist visa the next morning.  My life, my crazy life and everything in between.

I always had dreams.  I don't know when they began or how they began, but that really is not important.  All that is important, is that they did begin.  They were not grand dreams, there was no master plan, there was no specific journey that I wished to make, there was nothing that I wished to accomplish.  I was just a boy who gazed out of the car window, who saw mountains, hills, valleys, water cascading down the side of the mountains after a rainfall, forming itself into babbling streams, and I knew that I wanted to be out there, I wished to walk amongst the nature, to be out of doors, a wanderer perhaps, but something more, something much more, an adventurer.

In one of those quirks of fate, I found myself as a ten year old boy, in the classroom of Mr Noon, my year six teacher.  Had my parents not decided to move to the south of England, I would have been sitting in a different chair, a different room, a different teacher.  On the side wall of the classroom, stacked in random order on some shelves, were some tattered, well read, old paperbacks.  Each week, we were allotted reading times and were required to select one of the books and to sit quietly and read to ourselves.  I began with Biggles adventures, following the exploits of the daring World War I fighter ace.  Perhaps I read something after, I do not recall now, and then I picked up one of the books that would change my life.  I pulled it at random and as it slid out from the bookcase, its back cover was facing me.  I turned it over to see a picture of mountains and its title: The Hobbit.

I had no idea what this story was about, but I began to read nonetheless and as I did, I found myself utterly transported into another world, a world that, even though I never knew of its existence before that time, I wanted desperately to find.  Bilbo Baggins is a reluctant hero who seeks out the comforts of home, who revels in them in fact.  When the chance of adventure comes literally knocking on his door, he is afraid of change, he is risk adverse, preferring to stay in the confines of his own world, the one that he knows, that he understands, and that is safe.  Here was something that instinctively I found myself saying, "I would go!", "Oh, for the chance!"  I longed for Gandalf to come knocking on my door.  It was impossible of course.  As I read of the adventures of Bilbo and his companions, I longed for the mountains, for the passes, to see valleys and great forests, to become lost, to fight for a greater cause.  My fires were ignited, yet they would slumber for many more years before I would begin to realise my own dreams and for adventure to come knocking on my door.

JRR Tolkien awoke something inside of me.  His writing, his stories, they created in me the adventurous spirit. But wait a minute.  Did he really, or did that already exist?  Hadn't my mother already been a key factor in that, taking my brother and I off on crazy late night car journeys, spontaneously jumping up to give chase to the sirens of an fire engine, so that we could investigate the goings on, taking me for walks in the woods with the dogs, across the fields, filling my head and my heart with the beauty of the out doors?  In my mother I had a kindred spirit that also sought out excitement and adventure.  Perhaps it is more accurate to say that Tolkien fanned the embers of a fire that was already there, it was already in my heart and in the blood that I inherited.  Those embers smouldered away just waiting for the right moment to leap up and burn bright.  A fire that was born in the very fibre of my being, and a fire that would eventually consume my heart, and become my life.

Dreams do not need to be big, nor do they need to be significant.  In fact, a dream can be anything that you choose it to be.  Let me rephrase that because this is important: you do not choose your dreams, they choose you.  A dream is anything that fires your heart with passion and desire, one that fuels the imagination and lets it run wild and free.  You know it, because when you think of it, you erupt in a spontaneous smile and a joy that flows from your inner being.  One of my own dreams was nothing more than a desire for adventure.  I didn't know where I was going to go, I didn't know when, nor did I know how I was ever going to achieve it.  I held that dream as a young boy, gazing out of the car window as we drove through the mountains of Scotland.  I yearned to lose myself amongst the mountains, to climb their lofty peaks, to travel the passes between them, and to be out in the wild. 

I think this is also a very important point to make.  A dream does not need to be a complete story, whereby you can see all the way through to the end.  A dream can begin with the first step and nothing more.  I decided to go travelling.  That was all I had.  What happened after was beyond my wildest imaginings and in no way, could I ever have imagined it.  However foolish your own dream may seem, it is not.  It is your dream and as such, it is your true calling.  To not begin it, is to deny yourself the purest form of happiness and the ultimate gift that you can ever bestow upon yourself - the love of self.

I am still in my dream and I never wish to see it end.  My dream is my life, my life is my dream.  They are one and the same thing.  I could never have foreseen this.  I do not know what will come next, I do not know where life is going to take me.  I try not to plan too far in advance, since I wish to live as much as possible in the present moment.  Life will take care of me, as long as I follow my heart.  That is what I have learned on my own particular journey.  Your heart knows what is best for you, it will never lead you astray, it will never betray you.  I know that if I have the opportunity for a new adventure, then I will take it, I will seek to suck out the marrow of life, to take the road less travelled, and to continue to live as deliberately as possible.  The words carpe diem are tattooed on my left arm for a reason.  I live by them.

It's a funny thing this thinking business.  I just had to stop and let a thought run its course, a thought that produced a big smile on my face, and that originated in my heart.  I realised that my quest for adventure will never end.  What will cease is my quest for travel and for the constant change that I continually put myself through.  At some point, I will have had my fill of that type of adventure and I will seek out a different one.  You see, one of my other dreams is the dream of fatherhood, which is perhaps the biggest adventure of them all.  And that is the one adventure I never want to miss.  The one adventure I must not miss.  The one adventure I will not miss.

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Knowing The Path

Today, I experienced a moment of epiphany.  These moments never quite occur to you where you might believe.  My moment did not come as I stared out across the vast expanse of the ocean, nor did it arrive as I gazed up to the stars of the heavens, there were no snow-capped mountains in view, no deep lush jungle stretching off into the distance, there was no tumbling cascade of a waterfall.  Instead, it came to me as I stood in my kitchen and I poured out my ritual after dinner coffee.  So, just what was this moment of deep realisation about my life, that refused to contain itself, and that rushed at me, before I was able to add the milk to my cup?

There will always come moments when the light shines forth from within.  These times occur when we are most deeply connected with our hearts, when we are in synchronised rhythm, heart and soul as one.  I've experienced moments of epiphany before and I've written about them previously - standing in the middle of a square in Budapest, sitting on the wall at the waterfront in Wellington.  They never come when we expect them, they arrive unbidden, a moment when it feels as though lightning has struck you, or someone has turned on a light in a darkened room.  I know these moments because when they dawn on me, I cannot stop myself from smiling with a deep sense of pleasure and joy, I want to laugh, to shout and to sing out loud.  This can only come from the knowledge that the thought that is now in your head, originated in your heart, that the thought is the very essence of who you are, who you are meant to be.  That thought is you.

For many years of my life, I was in denial of who I was, who I was born to be.  I was not myself.  I was an imposter, or rather, the imposter was me.  I acted out the life of another person because that is what I thought I should do.  I was a good actor because I fooled many people, I fooled myself.  I could not admit to myself the very thing that it was that I wanted the most in life.  Why?  Simply because I was afraid of what it would mean to me, I was frightened of the consequences.  I lived a life where on the surface at least, I appeared to be happy, but underneath, I never truly was.  My true self was buried deeply within me, covered over, so that it was carefully hidden away, lest it should escape.

I could not have been more wrong.  The journey of my life, the story of my life, is essentially one of discovery.  It seems to me that life had a plan and it was not going to let me go quietly away.  Through so many seemingly random events, meetings and happenings, life found me, it caught me in its grip and it would not let me go.  Life reached through to my inner being, it touched my heart, and it rekindled my desires and my passions.  No, not rekindled, since it implies that once there was a fire and I do not recall there ever being a fire in my soul before life took hold.  But once it did, I was like a piece of driftwood, caught up in the current of a river and unable to reach the shore.  I had to go wherever the water of life took me.  Everything that happened to me, the good and the bad, became necessary parts of my journey, shaping me, helping me to learn, to grow, and to evolve my soul.  This river brought me to a place in my life where I was finally ready to admit to myself who I really was, and to become the man I had been born to be. 

Since this time, I have lived my life as deliberately as possible.  As Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden; or, Life In The Woods, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life..."  I have made decisions to do those things that I wished to do, no matter how ridiculous or foolish they might seem.  My journey has taken me around the world, I have been a backpacker, a dive master, a full time student, a project administrator, a charity street funds collector, and a diving instructor.  I have lived for a time in Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and Costa Rica.  I have visited and had short stays in many countries in between.  I have experienced things I never dreamed were possible.  And I have met many wonderful people.  All of this was possible because of one thing: I dared to try.

Back to now.  Nearly eight years since my true journey began, I have found myself wondering what I should do next.  I know full well that I cannot do what I do forever, that the physical nature of the work will take its toll on my body.  I have been giving thought to the need for a retirement plan and a pension, that I will need healthcare in the coming years, that really and truly, I have had a lot of fun and that perhaps finally, it is time to stop and to go and do something far more sensible.  With that in my mind, I have begun to think seriously about becoming a school teacher.  It is something that I believe I would be good at, since I love passing on my knowledge and helping others to learn and to grow.  I have even been complimented on my patience, care and teaching skills.  It seems to be a good fit, a way of returning to normality, of a secure future with a steady income.  But something just hasn't felt right.  As much as I believe I would make a good teacher, the thought of it has not fired me with enthusiasm, the way that I fire up when I talk of scuba diving, the ocean, care for the environment, or travel.  I have been puzzling over why not, when teaching would appear to make so much sense?

This evening, as I stood at my kitchen counter, coffee slowly filling my cup, my moment of epiphany arrived.  In that moment, I knew the path of my life and I knew why teaching is not right for me at this time.  More than this though, this thought that came to me hit me hard, and I smiled because here at last was the truth.  Life is short.  Our time on this planet is but a fleeting moment in which to make our mark and to leave behind our legacy.  There are things that I want in my life: a wife, children, dogs, cats, a family.  Right now, I do not have them.  Why do I want to return to the lifestyle I had before, where I was conforming to what society expected of me, when it went against my true self?  I know that it will make me unhappy.  It will slowly but surely tear my soul apart and it will destroy me.  All that I have learned will be lost, forgotten, and things will be just as they once were, before I began.  I cannot let that happen.  I will not let that happen.

There will come a time when I must forsake this particular part of my journey.  This I know to be true.  That time will come when I have need to take care of something more than myself, when my purpose in life shifts to the provision and care of others - my wife and my children.  Until that time, I am going to go on doing what I have been doing.  I am going to see the world, to travel, to enjoy new experiences, meet new people.  I am going to continue to take a chance on life because I do not know when my last day will come.  I am going to have an adventure.

Thinking of this makes me happy.  Knowing why I have struggled over the last months to understand my direction in life brings me great comfort.  I am still going in the right direction.  Life it seems, is not yet done with me, nor I with it.  The road less travelled beckons to me still.  My heart is singing right now, it is joyful, hopeful and it is ready to go on again.  One day, my heart will be joined by another and when it is, we will journey together, we will make our adventures to share with our children.  And at the moment that she enters my life, those two hearts that have beaten for so long in separate rhythms, will beat to the same tune.  There will always be two hearts, but from that moment on, there will be only one soul.

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