St. Augustine quoted:
"People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering."
Adventure fascinates me. I love to explore. And travel. I think I got it from my dad.
Growing up, we traveled a lot across India. Every couple years, we would visit new places. I have been to Kashmir twice, and it is still #1 on my list of "favorite places I have visited so far". Each trip with my family would be an adventure. We were not rich, so we traveled mostly by train and bus, and mom packed lots of meals from home to save money on food. Every trip brought our family closer, and every trip taught me few lessons worth cherishing.
After coming to the US, I have done several adventurous things....and maybe the most significant has been my hike to
Half Dome in Yosemite (~18-mile round trip with 4800 ft elevation gain). Each trip to a national park in the US has been amazing - kind of sacred - and has taught me so much. Apart from hiking, I love biking, playing tennis/racquetball, kayaking, etc and have tried adventurous things like hang-gliding, white water rafting and most recently sea kayaking.
I read an article recently on CNN.com about
Roz Savage , the ocean rower. I read a few of her blog posts, and came to know that she was releasing her first book "Rowing the Atlantic" - Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean...and was intrigued. I decided to order the book and finished reading it last week.
Let me start by saying that I absolutely loved the book.
How many of us would dare to leave our jobs, divorce our husbands, leave all materialistic possessions behind and decide to row SOLO across an ocean to find happiness and a purpose to live? I just admire the guts this woman has. Agree that the measures she took to find happiness are extreme, and not everyone needs to go to the great lengths she did, but I do admire her courage.
While reading the book, I reflected upon my life a lot. I love books that make me do that. I realized I am fairly content with how my life is right now. I am not unhappy. I don't hate my job....I would love to do something different than engineering, if given an opportunity, but I certainly don't hate my work at this time. I feel extremely loved by my family, my husband, and my friends. At every point in my life when I am going through difficulty, I feel blessed to have people who I can rely upon and who can be trusted.
Having said that, there are few things that could definitely change in my life to make me feel happier (it's a relative term, isn't it?).
Coming back to the book, what I loved the most is Roz's description of all her challenges at sea, and how she handled them, and the thoughts that went through her mind at that time. She was the last person to start the race, and she didn't like that. She secretly hoped she would do better, and she did. I saw a bit of myself in her when she described that.
Throughout the book, she beautifully illustrates Mr. Self-critical, Mr. Self-Doubt, Mr. Guilt and Mr. Competitive. I enjoyed reading how she deals with them during her adventure.
While reading through her pages which described her upbringing and education, I reflected a lot upon how I grew up. In a very different environment, to say the least. I will not say that I don't desire for materialistic possessions, but I do feel I am mostly content with what I have, at any point in life. When I came to the US, my dad helped fund a loan for my education, and it was the first time I had taken such a huge debt. So I used to think twice even to buy a banana for a snack, which I found very expensive coz I was still converting $$ to Rupees in my head all the time.
When I recently purchased a home, I bought the most affordable one, which a lot of my friends feel small. I find it more than spacious for my needs and I am happy. It doesn't have a huge backyard, or a pool, or a big kitchen, or a jacuzzi....but it has all the basics that a couple would need, and much much more than that. It has a lot of upgrades, which I like, and its brand new. More than anything, it fits our budget at this time, and when I go to bed every night, I feel peaceful, rather than stressed.
Coming back to Roz's adventure. I loved how she always found a way to believe in herself. When, one by one, all of her oars broke, and she figured out how to move on. Her blisters, her tendinitis and how she dealt with them. Her days after her satellite communication failed. I was impressed that she carried a sprout maker with her on the boat - a lightweight inexpensive thing which had such a great use for this kind of journey. The Ziploc bag of homemade greetings cards from her mom reminded me of mom's love - nothing can beat that.
Solitude - how many of us have spent so many days by ourselves, anywhere on this earth, with no contact with human beings? It's frightening for most, I am sure. I routinely have days when I am off the internet, minimal phone calls, no TV, with just a book to read. But that's just a day and its easy.
These are the life-learned philosophies that Roz has shared on her
website :
- Don’t waste mental energy asking yourself if you CAN do something. Just do it. You’ll surprise yourself. I did.
- Be clear about your objectives. Ignore others, stay true to yourself and measure success only against your own criteria. I was last to finish the race – big deal. I went out there to learn about myself, and I did.
- The only constant in life is change. So don’t get depressed by the bad times, and don’t get over-excited by good ones. Accept that things are exactly as they are, and even bad times have something to teach us.
- Life can be magical, but magic only gets you so far. Then you need discipline, determination and dedication to see it through.
- Hope can hurt. The danger is that you hope for too much and set yourself up for disappointment. Be optimistic but realistic. Nothing is ever as good or as bad as you expect it to be.
- Be mindful of the link between present action and desired future outcome. Ask yourself: if I repeat today’s actions 365 times, will I be where I want to be in a year?
- Decision-making: act in faith, not fear, and don’t worry about making a ‘wrong’ decision – the way you implement it is more important than the decision itself.
- Be your own best friend. The more you rely on other people, the less control you have over your destiny.
- Be proud of your own obituary: a few years ago I wrote two versions of my obituary, the one I wanted and the one I was heading for. They were very different. I realized I needed to make some big changes if I was going to look back and be proud of my life. I am making those changes, and now I have a life worth living.
To sum it up, I was inspired by the book in many ways. It gave me one more example of someone who dares to dream big, finds a cause to fight for, and overcomes challenges to become successful in the pursuit of their dream. Roz is a great campaigner for our environment. Way to go Roz!
Here are some sentences in the book that I found very thought provoking:
"My lifelong tendency to rely on others meant that my repertoire of practical skills was sadly limited, and although I suspected that I was capable of more than I imagine, in ordinary life the temptation to take the easy option and ask for help was too much for me to resist.
Whatever you do, put your whole heart into it.
That night, I sat at my desk with two blank sheets of paper in front of me. I had decided to write my own obituary. What might people say about me when I died? Or, more importantly, how would I perceive my life as it was drawing to a close? Would I be proud of the way I'd lived, or full of regrets? I was going to write two versions. The first version would be the obituary that I wanted to have, and the second would be the one I was heading for if I carried on as I was.
What mattered was what I did, not what I owned.
Life is easier in the storms. My strange ocean existence seemed more tolerable while I had the occasional crisis to divert my thoughts from negative emotions, and keeping myself busy with chores around the boat made me feel I was in control of at least some small aspects of my life.
Loneliness had not been one of my demons. No, the demons that had plagued my first month on the ocean were feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, and frustration.
A large bank balance didn't provide insurance against unhappiness, and wrapping myself in cotton wool was no guarantee against injury. It was better to get out there and live life, and to live it large, than to continue in my supposedly "secure" lifestyle, quietly dying of boredom.
Fear is rarely logical. Nor does fear have any reality - it exists only in the mind.
It is the odd things that the mind chooses to focus on in a crisis.
For here am I sitting in a tin can far above the world,
Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do.
I have learned a lot, although sometimes I feel I have acquired just enough wisdom to know how much more there is to be learned.
When you stand at the bottom of the mountain and look up at the mountaintop, the path looks hard and stony, and the top is obscured by clouds. But when you reach the top and you look down, you realize that there are a thousand paths that could have brought you to that place.
For we are all on a great adventure--the adventure of life--and even for the majority who will never row across an ocean or climb a great peak or trek to a pole there is much to be learned from living life with mindfulness and awareness."
Roz is currently rowing the Pacific - she has completed 2 stages and will begin her third and final stage in Spring 2010. Looking forward to it :)
