I get overly excited about adventures. I’ll be the first to admit that. When I moved to Wyoming in 2012, I felt that barely anyone understood why I had to move. It was a bold move and I can understand why someone who cared for me would be nervous for me. I had to make the move and I was excited as hell to take the path less traveled.
In 2014 I left a good job to go fight wildfires. It was so worth it and it ignited a passion for working outdoors in me, that was just itching to come out. Than the season ended and I got a job in the oil field making big money but, that tanked after the hiring cycle for fire and I was looking at going to school. I had a dream of a job that was hard but rewarding, one that I loved and didn’t really need a vacation from, and that job was in the mountains. I’m still trying to lock it down exactly what that is but its narrowed throughout the years and I’m moving in that direction.
When I do get free time I want more adventure. Sometimes I fail myself when I don’t have someone to join me on that adventure. It makes sense because adventure is better with friends and builds better friendships. This year I went out on a limb…a big limb, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve watched Youtube videos or others trips, talked to friends, looked at what I will need for this trip. I’m doing a 7 day solo canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota. My longest, my first overnight solo, my first multiday trip isn’t something to be taken lightly.
This picture is of Wyoming not MN. I know but I haven’t taken a MN pic yet.
I’m all excited and want to share this with people. A woman in the outdoors industry asked me to hang out and she has similar passions to me, and I’m worried I’m blowing my best chance at networking for my dream job because I’m too excited. I feel like very few understand my excitement for this trip except for a handful of my friends. I feel like getting excited about this drives people away. I kind of don’t care tho. I’m excited for the adventure, I’m excited to meet new and interesting people(not boring ones), I’m excited to challenge myself with planning this solo adventure food, gear, everything but the canoe.
I can’t stand the idea of a boring life with a 9-5 job that I’m not excited about deep down inside. The idea of just going to the bar and getting drunk and doing the same miserable thing every day sickens me. I want that fire in my soul to be burning like an inferno. I want life to be so full of adventure, experiences, grizzlies, pack strings stories, hunts, good friends, etc. that when I finally get old I can be a role model for my nieces and nephew and maybe my own kids(if I have any). I want people to look at my life and say that that was a life worth living and it was lived well. It won’t be perfect…but it will be worth it.
It’s biblical, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you” ( Genesis 12:1), when God called Abraham, it wasn’t to sit around in your parents basement, like the 30 year olds of today. It was to go out into the world and forge a path, to seek adventure, challenges, and uncomfortable zones. Do you think our ancestors were successful because they were timid, scared, boring, took the lazy way thru life, didn’t want to work, or asked for a universal basic income? No, they got up at the crack of dawn and forged their life despite whatever adversity they had to overcome. We are biologically engineered to get off our duff and get shit done!
As Lawrence of Arabia said “All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.” I just found this quote today and it’s inspiring…..make your dreams possible…your deepest wildest dreams. Chase them to the stars, or to the mountains if you are like me….and for heavens sake fight for them with all you got because it’s worthwhile!
Ramblin' Man Outdoors 