“Stay Inspired.” The motto of my life since I began
exploring the outdoors and getting into things I shouldn’t, like travel books
and Pinterest destination boards and climbing magazines and backpacking guides.
I tell myself that I can do anything, I can get INTO anything if I have the
desire and if I put in the effort. As a single, young adult with a dependable
college degree and job stability, I remind myself that the potential for my
life’s hobbies and interests is virtually unlimited. With nothing to hold me
back I can try anything I’m curious about and devote time, money, and effort
into it for as long as I’m interested. No sense in wasting away my free time
watching show after show on Netflix when there are countless opportunities for
adventure and growth in new pursuits that don’t have to do with a screen.
So I start to take interest in new things and ideas and I
force myself to dream about what my life could be. Trouble is once I get a
taste for something I just want to get into it more and more, get deeper
involved in the learning, the skill, the experience. Longer vacations, more
exotic places, more technical or strenuous climbs, and things that require
actual gear, equipment, prep-work, and know-how. It’s at times exhilarating and
other times overwhelming. Like getting into a body of water you might’ve
thought was a pool with known bounds and an end that you could see, but finding
out you actually just jumped into the ocean, which has no limits and in which
you are likely to get lost or hurt.
On the exhilarating side, say you start taking short trips
here and there with the small amount of PTO and funds you’ve saved up in the
few years of working since college. A national park one weekend, a few months
later the next one is easier, and maybe later that year your first excursion
out of the country to dip your toes in the water of overseas travel… Initially
your thirst gets quenched but it quickly grows stronger after your fun experience
is over because you realize there is so much more that you didn’t get to see or do.
It’s addicting. It’s both healthy and unhealthy at the same
time: what other piece of life advice could be so encouraging – “Stay Inspired”
- yet instill so much dissatisfaction over what you’re currently lacking? The
motto originally stuck for me because it kept me looking positively towards the
future at something - anything - that tilted my head up instead of down when I
was going through a rough time. But now I’m trying to balance a scale with one
side holding ‘gratitude and contentedness’ and the other holding ‘dreams and
aspirations.’ I can’t seem to find the middle ground where I have a healthy
yearning for adventure and progression without becoming unhappy with my
existing state. And on the other hand, the last thing I want to do is become
complacent with where I am and let the thirst die out because I tell myself I
have it good here and now.
As I cruise through my twenties faster than an easy route at
the climbing gym at the beginning of a session, my concern over this struggle
starts to develop some weight. Just like the ever-common young adult desire to
figure out one’s career/life calling or to eventually settle down and build a
life with ‘the one’ (if he or she can be found), this threat comes looming with
the knowledge that time is not infinite despite being young. In what direction
do I begin to point all my decisions now so that the trajectory I take does not
leave me regretting missed opportunities in 5, 10, 15 years’ time? Because the
fact is each decision does matter and
have consequences. With every choice I make about how to spend my time and who
to spend it with, I am either moving forward or staying in the same place.
Do I make the choices now to live my life full of pursuit of
the exotic, striving forward with a gumption that causes me to put myself and
my goals above everything else? The feared consequence of this path is
unknowingly become a friendless, selfish, never-happy dream chaser, forgoing
meaningful friendships and giving up decent work opportunities in search of the
PERFECT job and the PERFECT people with which to fill my life, those I think will
help me achieve my goals. Will I be sacrificing what could become deep,
life-enhancing relationships with people I know now if I choose to move or
change jobs or only hang out with those interested in my same hobbies?
Perhaps a dialogue with the potential future version of me
who settled too young would offer some perspective. 30 year old me who never really tried anything hard or exciting
or different could still be alone, living in the same small city and attending
the same community events every year. She could be decently content because she
stayed in her comfort zone, but she’d know what was she was missing out on
because of the copy of Lonely Planet’s “Where To Go When” book on her shelf
that she can always browse, landing on any page to learn about an enthralling
new part of the world she didn’t know about or didn’t think would be all that
exciting to see. She’d have the memories of early trips to Moab and Zion
National Park and her following research into more geographically close parks to
explore, along with the slew of adventurous things you can do in them. She’d
likely have chosen to kill any interest she had in developing a thriving career
full of learning, excelling, and development, in order to settle down with a
job that fulfilled SOME of the requirements: paid the bills, offered a decent
level of responsibility and ownership, and was close enough to home.
It seems, however, that on both sides of the argument each
perspective can say, “If you choose my way you will be giving something up.” I am reminded – no, I may
be learning for the first time – that there is no such thing as the right
decision.
So I continue on with my days in a strange overlap of moods,
trying to live in the moment with only my immediate needs and wants at hand (my
exercise plans for the week, how to solve the issues I’m facing at my job, what
to do on my next day off), while trying to look at my life from a bigger picture
mindset, asking the questions …
At what point should one start taking risks and stepping
outside of their comfort zone?
At what point should one give up luxuries they have now in
pursuit of dreams of what could be?
At what point should one place people over self in order to
foster a relationship, when it means setting aside your developing ambitions,
potentially making you unhappy in the long run?
For how long do you stay in a current situation of any kind before
deciding it’s time to move on to bigger and better things?
Or at what point should one reign in what might be
unrealistic, lofty expectations of life and accept the fact that you can’t have
everything, and what you do have you should be grateful for?
The tightrope is thin, and it is stretched tight. I know if
I don’t take one step, there is no danger of falling. But life doesn’t happen
until you start forcing yourself to ask the questions and come up with some
answers, even if you’re not sure they are the right ones.
