Time marches on and the day of departure looms closer. Inevitably, doubts also arise and seem logical to consider. Anybody else who was single & healthy, with some savings and a well-paid job might consider putting a deposit down on a flat and setting some money aside for a shiny hatchback and gym membership. Isn’t that the normal thing to do?
Comfort, clean living, security, the promise of a tidy pension fund – why don’t I want that? What the hell’s wrong with me? Why on earth is an intelligent man in his mid-forties deciding to abandon all that and instead go cycling around the dirt tracks of the world with a tent?
Lots of questions, all difficult to answer. Except that I know deep down in the core of my being that none of it would make me happy, it wouldn’t allow me to lie down on my deathbed and think to myself ‘what a great life that was’. I’ve been happy, I’ve had beautiful children and I wouldn’t change the past, but the future is in a different part of me. I’ve spied the other side of the valley and the hardship and sacrifices don’t feel important enough not to try for it.
Good On'Ya as they say here in Oz! Can't wait to hear what you get up to, an amazing journey!! :) Una
ReplyDeleteGood luck, good luck! If you hate it you can always come home - it's not the end of the world.
ReplyDeleteI suspect, however, that you will enjoy it a lot!
Whatever doesn't kill us only makes us more interesting -- or so we may hope -- and we owe it to our friends to be interesting, so that they, who stayed home building a comfortable and boring retirement fund, may participate vicariously in our adventures and picture themselves paddling the headwaters and being hissed at by snakes.
ReplyDeleteI have now reached that pleasant point in life where, when I visit my grandson, I can pull out of a packing crate a skull or blowgun or dried piranha or some other wonder to tweak his imagination and keep him aloof from the video-addled culture that surrounds him.