Doing the thing
One of the things I’m most interested in, is that moment where you want to do something or know you should do something, and you don’t. I procrastinate and put it off. For hours, days – sometimes years at a time. And there’s usually an unlocking moment where the dam breaks free and you do the thing. Exercise. Call a friend. Talk to your boss or a difficult customer about the awkward situation you’re both in. Something hard that you’ve been putting off but are invariably grateful that you eventually did.
One of the things that I put off for years was related to my Fun/Adventure lobe of balance. I used to dream about trips and doing things that were adventurous and involved things that were really hard. Trips that most people dreamt about taking someday and never did, and that included me.
This past weekend my best friend and I rode our adventure motorcycles to Crabtree Falls park in the George Washington National Forest. About two hundred miles from our house, we setup camp in the park using tents and hammocks to sleep in:
I like sleeping in my hammock as opposed to sleeping on the ground on a mat, because I’m older now and my back is a little more finicky….
But I digress.
Ron (my friend) asked me if I wanted to hike to see the falls. It was only ½ mile away according to the paper he was showing me from the campground. It turned out to be ½ mile away to the entrance of the park, and then another 2 miles up vertically (over 1000 feet of elevation gain) to the falls, which are the largest east of the Mississippi.
It was hard. I was struggling. But my fitness lobe was in balance, so I was able to make it up to see the falls, and I was grateful that I did.
Standing at the bottom of the waterfall, I could feel the cold mist flowing over my body. It was like a natural air conditioning system….
I wanted to share all of this because it was hard. And I couldn’t have gone on the trip at all but for the thousand smaller steps I’ve taken in my Balance journey. Now that I’m here and know what it took to get here, I think I can help other people get here too. And that’s the most exciting part of any journey for me. Bringing people back to where you were and watching their faces light up the ways yours did.
More adventures to come….