Remember a couple of posts ago when I said that reminders of our mortality were a good thing? That they can energize us and make us feel alive? Well, shortly after the experience that prompted that post, I experienced the other kind of reminder of mortality. The kind that leaves you speechless and nearly immobilized. The kind that makes you realize how lucky you are to be alive in a much more “real” sort of way.
I had not been using the gas in my camper for several weeks since I had left Montana. I had realized that the funky smell was not from my refrigerator as I had originally thought. I had realized that it was in fact a gas leak, and that it was not coming from my fridge but somewhere yet to be identified. My sniffer doesn’t always work well. I get congested and have a few allergies that flare up from time to time so by the time I did smell it, it was probably pretty strong.
I had been using my propane for the fridge, the stove, and would eventually need it for the heater. All of that had to come to an immediate stop once I realized that I had a serious gas leak. And although it took me longer than it should have (as in immediately) I am glad I figured it out… well, I am just glad I figured it out.
[We interrupt this post for a quick camper tally: On the “broken and/or rendered unusable” side we have the sink, shower, hot water heater, shower door, air conditioner, refrigerator, stove, heater, and the lack of a dry shelter. (My camper and I cry together.) On the “working as it should be” side we have a table, a bench/couch, a floor, and a toilet... with a hitch receiver and tires recently joining the working side.]
Although I was toughing it out and figuring out how to get by without water or propane in my camper, it only took a few chilly (ok freezing) nights for me to break down and call and get an estimate on having the gas leak looked at. Luckily I happened upon a good shop run by a good guy who was able to get it in the next day. (I will be elaborating more on this in a later post)
The first really cold night though, I toughed it out. The next really cold night, the person at the front desk of the RV park gave me a space heater to use. That worked great, I could set it at just enough to take the chill off, but it wasn’t a permanent solution since I would still not be able to use it when I was parked somewhere without electric to plug into.
So, I took it in to find out how much work it was going to be to fix it. Well, by the time I came back he had already replaced the damaged copper tubing. He showed the piece to me, and the hole that was in it. I just looked at it, and then looked at him…. and could hardly say a word other than… “that is a really big hole.” In my mind, I was flashing through all the times that I had the gas on for who knows how long for the fridge and then lit the stove…
My only saving grace is that these little campers are far from airtight. There are vents behind the fridge and stove, and I usually had the windows and overhead vent opened at least a little. But… it was still startling. It was still frightening to know how close I could have been to a big “KA-BOOM!”
But, now thanks to a good guy at a good shop who insisted I bring it in because “a gas leak is pretty serious” (which I knew, which is why I had been gas free for weeks) I now can safely use my propane again. Which then shifts the stove, fridge, and heater back over to the working side. The poor hot water heater will have to remain on the broken and/or rendered unusable side however until the grey water tank is replaced. The good news is that we are shifting back in the right direction!
Thanks to the good people of Alaska!
(I know I am way behind an haven’t even made it into Canada in my posts on here yet, let alone Alaska, but I assure you I am working on getting caught up! Waterton National Park post coming soon!)
Previous entries:
Camper (mis)Adventures - Part I
MacGerber Tool
I know it may sound crazy, but I have these fantasies that in any given situation, I would have the knowledge, gear or… whatever might be needed to save the day. A fantasy of preparedness and/or resourcefulness, of sorts.
Let me give you an example. I used to have this hydration pack in which I kept a stash of unfilled water balloons. Why you ask? Why indeed. I don’t remember why I had them in the first place, but I put them in my pack because I hated to throw away perfectly good water balloons… and thought they might be “handy” in some creative unexpected way in some unlikely situation. And how cool would it be, to be in some random scenario, and to be able to have this conversation…
“Wait, I have something that will be perfect for that.”
“Water balloons?”
“Yes! Water balloons.”
“Brilliant.”
“I know.” “I knew they would come in handy some day.”
I mean, the possibilities are endless really. Lets say you are in a downpour, stuck in your tent, forgot playing cards and have nothing better to do than… randomly blow up a bunch of tiny little colorful water balloons and pointlessly bat them at each other like fools while you giggle like little school girls. (and then never tell anyone because they just really wouldn’t understand the delight in the pure colorful pointlessness of it all)
Or – you are at a BBQ on a really hot day and want to liven up the party a bit with an unexpected water balloon ambush. No one would see it coming.
On a more serious note… what if you needed to use it as a tiny tourniquet, like on your finger or something? Or, you could tediously tie several of them together to create a larger tourniquet. I mean, if you are at risk of bleeding out you will take whatever you can get right? Even if it comes in the form of a carnival-like string of multi-colored water balloons.
But, alas… I never got a chance to pull those little water balloons out of my bag of tricks. I think I eventually gave up on the dream and just (reluctantly) threw them away as I transitioned to a new hydration pack. Never would I get to sit around a campfire while someone says:
“Dude, do you remember that time that we were wondering what the hell we were going to do, and then out of nowhere Shana had this crazy handful of water balloons that totally saved the day. So random, but man, I don’t know what we would have done without them.”
Sigh….
I am not sure if it is a clash of my practical and creative sides, or it is a meeting in the middle of the two. What I do know is that if I had actually come into a situation where they would have saved the day… it would have been very cool. Yes… very cool. But since that day never came, and it looked like it never would, continuing to carry them around felt utterly ridiculous.
Although my water balloon dreams have floated away, I still occasionally harbor fantasies about the usefulness of a piece of string, a small ziploc baggie, a random marble, multi-tools, etc.
I do hope that I am able to channel my inner MacGyver though, should a situation ever arise to call for it….
I almost didn’t drive into Many Glacier. I almost didn’t stop at the Babb Store. Really, the fact that I did both was the result of a newlywed couple and their choice of a parking spot. Funny how something so minor can completely change your direction.
I was on my way out of St. Mary and on my way to the US/Canadian border en route to Waterton National Park. I just wanted to stop at the Post Office on my way through before I left the country. There was really only one good place to pull in and park with my camper, but there was a little Subaru parked there with “Just Married” written on the window. The guy was sitting in the car with the door open and looked like he had either been there a while… or would be there a while. So, I decided to loop around and go back to the Many Glacier turn off.
It was a very, very, very bumpy road. (And yet, such a small foreshadowing of what the future held.) Of course, it was a beautiful drive despite the “rough road” as the sign had warned. Peaceful… well other than the jostled part. Not too many other cars. I was excited to see the lodge and hoped to get a good picture. Well….
There were soooo many people at the end of the road. I couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere. Any. Where. There were not any to be found; camper or no camper. I finally pulled over on a turn out along side the road at one point just so I could quickly run to the restrooms before hitting the bumpy road on the way back.
I stopped at a couple spots on the way back to snap a few pictures, but it was really windy and I didn’t want to take too much time because I still had a lot of ground to cover. So I slowly bounced my way back to the highway.
When I got back to Babb, I remembered I was low on water and thought I better pick some up, just in case. Water is one of those things that you just always need to make sure you have enough of. Always. I walked through a time warp as I walked into the little store. It was like it had never changed from when it was first built. The inventory had changed but everything else was the same, or at least made to look that way. I picked up some water and then went to retrieve my camera to take a few shots.
I was told the antique shop next door was also a place I should go, so I swung in for a quick perusal. (Ladies, just between us, there was some really fun vintage dresses in there that were priced quite reasonably. Had I more than a zero need for adding a vintage dress to my limited closet space right now, I would have picked one up myself.)
And after all of this, I didn’t even end up stopping at the Post Office. Sometimes the detours are more important than our original destination….
We interrupt this regularly scheduled program for a public service announcement.
(Ok… so there is nothing regularly scheduled about this… at all, and it is not technically a public service announcement. Regardless….)
As you may have read earlier, I have already touched on the subject of the new experience of “getting hitched.” One of the effects that this is a slower traveling speed. Not only does the handbook for my vehicle recommend not using overdrive while towing, and yes I actually took it out and read it, it just isn’t safe in most instances to drive much over 55mph or 60mph on the high end. This is in part because as a single axle trailer, it can have the tendency to morph from a portable abode to the wagging tail of a happy dog. As you might imagine, this can get a little scary, especially on considerably bumpy, winding, and otherwise uneven driving surfaces loosely referred to as paved.
So, as a result of this, I tend to drive slower than… almost everyone. Which in itself is a little bit of an irony, since I am almost always running behind schedule and would normally tend to drive (an acceptable amount over) the speed limit to try to make up some time. In fact, if someone were to keep track (which I am sure no one probably would, thankfully) the most common phrase used in my posts would probably be some variation of “I wanted to leave/get there sooner, but…” (Although please note, hopeful OC statistician with nothing better to do: my awareness of this might alter my future writing behaviors.)
I think I am slowly learning to come to terms with my struggle with time… always running out of it or after it. Driving slower and pulling a camper might actually help me with this – help me put things into perspective. Life threatening situations tend to do that.
Rock = Highway
60mph Hard Place = Long bed semi-truck hauling second flatbed trailer behind it.
Pretty much everyone passes me eventually: cars, motorcycles, RVs, double and triple axle trailer haulers, Sunday drivers, and yes even semis. I am usually thankful when the speed limit has been reduced to one I am comfortable with and yay! for passing lanes. But occasionally, I get on a stretch of road without these perks and can find myself with vehicles behind me anxious to get around. Most drivers maintain a safe distance until they are ready to pass. (a second yay! for safe and considerate drivers)
However, sometimes I get an anxious, late, stressed, or otherwise rushed driver behind me that creates a difficult situation. Such was the case with the aforementioned long bed semi. He wanted to pass me and had even started to a few times. I was prepared to even slow down as he passed if needed to allow him back in the lane. He started out a couple times, and then would slow down and swerve right back. I didn’t understand why, and was thinking to myself, “just pass me already!” until I saw later that he had a rather long load.
This is why it becomes a hard situation: 1. I have a big semi anxious to get around me which makes me nervous in itself of how much risk he is willing to take. 2. I have a big semi on my bu…mper and even if I wanted to pull over at a turn out to let him by, it is too dangerous to hit the breaks without notice to turn off for fear of him playing bumper cars with me.
So, unless I can see the turn out from a half mile away, to see if I can safely transition from the highway and also get back on the highway which is sometimes tricky with the trailer, I have to maintain the max speed I can safely drive. Also, pulling the trailer makes it impossible to stop on a dime and pull off the highway without a nice pullout or exit where I can do so with minimal turning.
I longingly glanced at several turnouts as I drove past that I couldn’t scope early enough. Eventually I made it to a large accommodating turnout, pulled off the highway, came to a stop, and watched the rather long semi roll past me. I then took a few minutes to take some deep breaths, allow the blood to flow back into my fingers, and then snapped a few pictures.
I am fully aware that it serves no purpose to get angry with something that you have no control over, even though sometimes it seems like we have no control of our own anger. I also realize that there isn’t always a purpose or meaning to everything, at least one that we need to know about. But, if attempting to put a meaning or purpose to something allows me to focus on something positive rather than submitting to anger or fear, I will allow myself these moments to over analyze.
In these instances, I tell myself that maybe there is a reason I am getting pushed down the road; why I am not allowed to pull over or delay my driving. Maybe I am missing an accident that I would have been in had I stopped or been going slightly slower. Maybe I needed to slow up the other driver so he avoided an accident, which is something I tell myself when I am the one stuck behind a slow driver and am starting to get anxious. Or… possibly it is simply to remind me of my mortality.
Reminders of mortality are great things. They give us a little shot of adrenalin. They remind us time is short. They make us re-evaluate our lives: how we are spending them, the path we are on, and the level of fulfillment we have in the areas of our life that are most important to us. Have I told my family I love them recently? Am I smiling and laughing every day? Do I need to spend more time doing…? Do I need to remember to take care of myself so I have more to give to others?
I will wrap this up with one last yay: YAY! for life: the reminder of it and the ability to live, share, and enjoy it.
(Disclosure: This post has been slightly dramatized for effect. I was actually in no more perceived life-threatening danger than any other day that I am driving on the road with other drivers. However, it was still a bit scary and still made me do a bit of thinking.)
The Park Cafe in St. Mary, east of Glacier National Park, is highly recommended. Not only did my friends enthusiastically speak of it, but it boasts a “World Famous” status. I took a moment one evening to ponder on what exactly it takes to become World Famous, but I am still not entirely sure…. Is there a checklist or maybe a point system? Do you have to register with an organization that keeps track of these sorts of things? Just curious….
My friends had told me of the Gypsy Burrito at the Park Cafe. “I’m sold,” I had declared as they listed off the ingredients. I had meant to get there during sooner in my stay and had even planned to a couple times and had not made it. So, I pulled my camper into the parking lot and stopped in for lunch before I took off for the border.
The description of the Gypsy Burrito read:
Curry spices season this blend of potatoes, yams, parsnips, onions, carrots, coconut milk and garbanzo beans, wrapped in flour tortilla and topped with a tangy pineapple salsa and cashews.
It sounded good. And as it was set down in front of me, it looked good. Even the handsome doctor from Dallas standing behind me in the cash register line thought so. He asked if it was good. It was. Very good.
I could only eat one of two rather generous burritos on the plate so I asked to get a to-go box and ordered a piece of peach pie to go.
Pie. I really don’t understand the pie culture. Whenever people tell you that it is a really good cafe, they always seem to underscore it with, “they have really good pie.” Maybe it is just because I am not a pie person. My mom makes really good pies, and I will gladly have a piece if she has made one for an occasion. And I enjoy a piece of pumpkin pie at the holidays, but the rest of the year… pie doesn’t even enter my mind. And it certainly doesn’t persuade my decision making when it comes to deciding where to eat.
But, since it had been mentioned a couple of times, I got a piece to go. Just in case it was the most spectacular piece of pie ever… just in case it would change my entire perception of pie and its meaning in my life – or maybe even the meaning of life. Just in case…
Maybe it would have been better had I eaten it there. But I couldn’t eat another bite at the time. I even tried heating it up a bit on my grill, but I can’t help it… I was not won over. I am not a converted pie lover. Which is fine; I can leave the pie to the people who really appreciate it, and get my fill during the holidays.
The Gypsy Burrito though… was completely worth the time to stop on my way out of St. Mary. If you make it to Glacier National Park, I would recommend stopping by the Park Cafe in St. Mary and having a bite and a piece of pie… if you are a fan of pie that is.
Glacier National Park was my first “official” destination. The first place that I was very specifically setting out to see, as opposed to the random stops and last minute diversions that will frequently be a part of this journey.
I am not making reservations for places or camp sights, but might if it is required. I am trying to let this trip be as organic as possible. If I have to be at a specific place at a specific time, it limits my ability to act on the moment, to take the detour, to stay an extra day… and sometimes those are the best moments and places.
I find that if I have a specific place and time frame I become tunnel visioned and nearly forget to see what is around me. Maybe it is a subconscious way of eliminating awareness of what I am missing out on, but I also think it is just a matter of focus. So, unless it is an event that I am trying to attend, I am refraining from creating the stress of a rigid schedule.
It doesn’t matter how many times I drive through Glacier National Park, it is still just as beautiful and amazing as it was the time before, or the time before that, or the first time. This was the third visit in my adult life in addition to those from my childhood.
I believe we take our own experiences in life and apply them to what we are viewing. So we can look at the same thing in as many different ways as we are different between times of seeing them. The last time I went, I was in relationship and we went together which put a different perspective on the trip and experience from when I went with my Grandma nearly seven years earlier having just finished my 3rd year of college.
I am always in awe and so inspired by the mountains. They truly are majestic. It is not just being in nature, but rather there is something about mountain air that sings to me.
I was also happy to see some wildlife such as these marmots and mountain goats. I also saw a Black bear, but didn’t get close enough even with my telephoto lens to get a good shot. It had its head down feeding, so it is just a brown lump in the grass in my photo. I did get a photo of everyone up on the hill trying to get a better photo though…
I am having a hard time keeping up with my photo processing and sorting, partially because I have had limited access to internet and power to charge my computer, but I will have more photos posted soon…. (hopefully)
Oh, and this year marked the Centennial for Glacier National Park. More information on Glacier and its history can be found on the park website.
The next destination from Lake Mary Ronan was Glacier National Park. I didn’t know that I couldn’t pull my camper over Going to the Sun Road because of construction. What I did know was that I didn’t want to. I had driven the road before, and decided that I would rather just go the southern route below the park to St. Mary and go into the park from the East entrance since I would need to be on that side to head up to Waterton anyway.
I was able to get a hold of my friend Jessie who was in East Glacier for her cousin’s wedding. I had been really disappointed that I missed the backpacking trip into Glacier the week before, so I was glad to be able to meet up with her before she headed back to Idaho for grad school. She told me how they were rained and hailed on during the trip… and I decided maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that I missed it after all.
I had met Jessie the summer before in a workshop, Women’s Intro to Backpacking, she put on through the Montana Natural History Center. A friend from Bozeman had emailed an announcement to me, and I had been really excited to learn about it because I had been wanting to backpack for awhile, but just hadn’t had the opportunity. The workshop provided a great environment with a great group of women to learn the little details and ask the seemingly stupid and/or obvious questions. No need to feel intimidated or left behind. The Center has a lot of great workshops and events. I recommend visiting their site for more information.
I joined Jessie and her parents for dinner and then visiting around a small bonfire in her mom’s yard. I was offered a shower and the curb space to park my camper for the night, so I gladly took them up on it. It is funny the things we take for granted. Like “real” showers. It had only been a couple days, and I was trying to convince myself that it was part of the process. Don’t get me wrong, I can go camping, etc. without showering for days. But the difference is that the company you are keeping are also not bathing. You all get stinky and ripe together, so you don’t notice it as much. I am not in that situation. I am still interacting with people living their day to day lives and practicing their normal habits of hygiene. So, I am trying to maintain a certain level of cleanliness and a low level of greasiness.
Despite those efforts, I managed to leave my entire case of oral hygiene supplies at the house when I left for St. Mary. Jessie’s mom was making a trip to Duck Lake and said she would drop it off at the lodge for me. Phew! Going to have to be better about not forgetting things – especially important things that I can’t locally replace for less than 4 times the normal cost. She had told me about Duck Lake and said that it was a really pretty area. So, the next day I took the short trip over to the lodge and lake. It was a different world from Glacier, mostly in that it was more prairie than mountains. And much less “touristy.” It had a very beautiful and peaceful feel to it.
I will close with a big thanks to Jessie and her family for their hospitality!
I believe the year was 2000. I was a wide-eyed college student working on my Graphic Design thesis. When I should have been dreaming of pixels and pantone books, color combinations and white space, I was dreaming of driving around the country taking pictures and writing about the trip and my experiences.
The graphic design program is actually what drove me to take more than the Intro to Photography class in college. There was a competitive portfolio review to get into the program, and although my grades were good enough and I felt good about my work, I started to entertain “what-if?’s” What if I didn’t pass portfolio review? What am I going to do if I don’t do graphic design? I know! Photography. I made it through portfolio review, but was so excited about the idea of photography that I decided to double major.
I was in a history of photography class when I first heard of Robert Frank, the Swiss photographer who traveled around the States in 1955 on a Guggenheim fellowship taking pictures. Not beautiful landscapes, not high society portraits, not popular culture of the time… but the everyday scenes that met his lens as he traversed the country. I was fascinated!
When we were required to write a paper about an American photographer, I was given permission to write about Frank because of his subject matter. I delved in with what little I could get my hands on. The seed was planted. I wrote my paper in the present tense, but set in the future. I had idealistically planned on going approximately 50 years after Frank set about the country. I wanted to provide the contrast of a half a century and a woman’s perspective. Well, life has a way of taking over.
After I finished my Graphic Design degree, I was starting to get burned out from the class load of a double major and a minor, so I decided to just wrap it up. Not to mention the tuition fees which I am still paying off…. I am not going to get into the gritty details here, but to summarize: I ended up going through several jobs that were not a good fit for different reasons. I found myself turning 30 and wondering, really?
Really? This is what I have been working so many hours and so hard for? For what? Surmounting debt due to medical bills and barely making it month to month? What do I have to show for the hours, the stress, the ill health? A retirement account? What good is that if I am slowly becoming a shell of my former self? Am I willing to let my passions and dreams die, to wither away in this office – in this job that is not a good fit for me? Am I denying someone else of a job that may be a good fit for them?
Instead of writing New Year’s Resolutions, I had decided to declare this the year of adventure, not knowing at all that in just a few months I would be figuring out how to start traveling through the country. In fact, it is kind of a funny story how that happened, but considering how long this is already, I think I will save it for a future post. I started saying that now was the time – the best time. After all, I am not married and do not have kids to take care of like I thought I would by now. I joked that my only responsibilities were my dog and my bills, and they would follow me wherever I go. So, I jumped. I took the leap of faith, and here I am realizing a dream that was seeded ten years ago. I realized it was now or never.
I knew I had kept this paper. I had come across it a few years ago, and then tucked it away again. It had popped into my mind a few times, but I didn’t know where it was or if maybe I had thrown it away after all. I found it the weekend before I left on this trip as I was going through my art studio. I read it and couldn’t help but chuckle a little… in part because of my optimistic and idealistic youth, in part because it is just funny to read something you wrote ten years ago, and also because of how ridiculously dead on it is in parts. I thought I would save it and post it two weeks into my trip, since I wrote it two weeks into my trip in the paper. I am a couple days behind on that plan since I was at campgrounds without internet access, but then again, I am a few days ahead since I titled the paper August 12th.
To view a PDF of the paper, click on the image above or here. It is a scanned version of the paper that I had turned in for my class. The pictures are muddy, but you can view some of Frank’s work online if you are interested, or find the book, The Americans, on Amazon.
So, I may be a few days and years behind schedule, but then again… maybe I am right on time. Life has a funny way of putting us exactly where we need to be.
I admire people who seem to have it all figured out. Those who seem to have direction and purpose, and go forth with confidence. You can usually spot them by their walk or their posture. They are comfortable in their own skin. They have considerably less stress in their lives. They aren’t racing around with an espresso in one hand and a smartphone in the other trying to manage fifty things at once. They are easy to be around and we are drawn to them even when we aren’t sure why. They are quick with a smile and a hand. They live in peace with themselves and their environments. I am not one of those people… yet.
I can’t help but wonder if constantly asking for a “sign” that I am headed in the right direction or doing the right thing is the equivalent of a kid asking, “Are we there yet?” every five minutes.
“No, we are not there yet.”
“If the car is moving, we are not there yet.”
“You will know when we are there.”
“We promise to wake you up.”
“We won’t leave you in the car while the rest of us go and get ice cream cones with rainbow sprinkles and have fun.”
“Asking isn’t going to get us there any faster.”
Ok. Ok. I get it. But isn’t it still nice to have some re-enforcement? Isn’t it nice to be re-assured that even if we get a little off track once in awhile that we are indeed heading in the general direction we need to be?
I mean, nobody really wants to be “that” person on American Idol who really can’t sing and seems genuinely shocked by having that brought to their attention and having millions of people witness it, right? (Disclaimer: I have never really watched much American Idol, probably less than I could count on both hands, because I lived happily for nearly six years with just the two sometimes fuzzy channels I could bring in off my rabbit ears. I have been walking the fine line of technology and resistance for some time now. I still feel like it is an appropriately horrifying example regardless.)
The fact remains, however, that we need extremes. We need bad to define good and good to define bad. We need references and perspective.
Even still, we really only reward those who are successful and rarely pat someone on the back for their epic failure just because “they tried.” Maybe their mother or best bud might, but as a society we tend to exploit it, shun it, or pretend it never happened. And yet, many people who are really successful are only so because they have failed at some point. Is there an olympic skier who has never fallen or been hurt on the slopes? Or a mountain bike racer who has never bit it? No, because if you are not falling and crashing every once in awhile, then you are probably not skiing or riding hard enough, or pushing yourself enough… to improve. But generally we only respect failure if, at some point, it results in success. Then, and usually only then, do we commend someone for their courage, commitment, and perseverance.
The risks are different for each person and what they are trying to achieve. It is not just physical harm, but can also be mental and emotional. Isn’t the pursuit of love one of the ultimate risks of pain and failure? Yet, our desire for what love represents to us usually outweighs the fear that we associate to the possibility of failure and pain. But what about our own personal success, growth, and happiness? Why do we not chase after those things with the same wild abandon we do for love? Fear? Guilt? There are many ways that we can justify our avoidance of the very things we desire.
It sometimes appears that there is a huge gap between those who do and those who don’t. And usually it is those who don’t who speak the loudest against those who do. Maybe it is out of a need to justify the place they have chosen to exist, or it is expressed out of their own fears of doing exactly what it is they are criticizing. Or maybe they just plain don’t understand… what it is, what is supposed to be, or what it takes. But, we need critics to provide that balance: the negative to the positive and stillness to movement. And even when it stings a little, the doers realize the value in it because they are constantly working to improve: improve themselves, improve what they are doing, and improve their contribution. Yes, it is great to have our own personal cheerleaders. Of course. But those who are really going to succeed also figure out a way to extract gold from the rock that was thrown through their window. Or at least use it as a paper weight.
There is something to be said for making an effort, for taking a chance and making yourself vulnerable. Sure, it is easy to not take risks, and to sit in judgment of those who do, but I don’t think there is much growth in that route. Even when we fail, we have an opportunity to learn. We grow. We have experiences that enrich our lives and prepare us for the future. And, there is so much value in that.
There can be growing pains, and even some awkward moments, but if we do not try, if we do not start somewhere – we have already failed. (Just not as publicly usually.) So those of us who can, do. We let go of the things that are holding us back. We let go of the limiting beliefs and we open the door to the possibilities. We figure out how to do it rather than sit and focus and complain about why we can’t. Wow, what a difference that can make!
I think the most important aspect of anything is that “you tried.” You made a decision. You acted on it. You did the best you could and followed it through, whether to success or failure and then moved on to the next thing. It is really easy to come up with reasons why we “can’t” do something and plenty of people to help us with that. But, you will also find that it can be just as easy (even if unfamiliar at first) to come up with ways to do something. And once you have confidence in that, there are plenty of people to help you with that process as well.
It is not about abandonment or avoidance of the things that are not working. It is about letting go of the things that are keeping you from pursuing a higher level within yourself, however that translates to your own personal or professional life.
So, although I am not there yet, I do have something to aspire to. I will try to remember to trust… trust my path, my instinct, trust the journey, and maybe most of all, trust myself. And… I will try to spend less time looking for road signs and more time enjoying the scenery.
Ok. I admit I am learning some of this as I go. Like setting up my RSS feed, or more importantly getting it properly linked through my site. When I recently switched from the free blog platform to the self-hosting option so that I had access to more plugins and features… I apparently had everything all messed up. I tried using the provided forms, but just didn’t get it to work properly.
I am really more of a right brained girl that tries to make her left brain keep up. I really enjoy setting things up and making them look the way I want them to, but sometimes struggle with the deeper functionality. I hope you will bear with me.
So now, I think I have everything set up correctly. I apologize for any inconvenience or confusion. Here is the right feed link:
Thanks!
