Hello and welcome back on this lovely Friday night. Summer has not yet ended here in New England. We got a taste of cooler temperatures for a week, nice cool mornings in the 50’s and midday highs in the 70’s, but the past few days and upcoming week are back in the mid 80’s.
Fall is my favorite time of year, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to stick around for very long. I am hoping to make the most of the gorgeous weather and autumn colors before it turns to snow.
Enough about the weather, let’s get into some deeper water. What is your greatest fear? Currently, mine is looking back at this time in my life when I am in my 60’s or 70’s and wishing I had done more; taken more risks, said yes to more things, and taken better care of myself.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking about this week:
Competition
After high school I stopped competing in team sports. My interests had changed from soccer and track to hiking and rock climbing. While I have no regrets about following this new path into the outdoors, it doesn’t have the same camaraderie as a team sport.
Often, I hike alone, and for the most part I prefer it that way, but every once in a while, I’d like to have a friend to come along with me, someone who can keep pace and even push me to go harder.
While I love hiking, it doesn’t produce that intense focus you need when playing a sport. That’s why I am going to start competing in different outdoor events like trail running and adventure triathlons.
I think a dose of competition every once on a while is a healthy thing for the mind and body. Check out this article on competition by the University of Colorado Denver.
City Planning: Walkable and Bike-able Cities
Cars are the worlds most expensive, oversized armchairs. They increase obesity and decrease the number in your bank account. I don’t believe I am alone in saying that I would love to never need to own a car again.
Europe has many lovely walkable and bike-able cities. Why does America have so few?
Let’s go off the diving board here into the deep end. I have no research done on this (although with some digging you could probably find some), but it seems like common sense to me: lobbying. Lobbying is basically legal bribery, if a big enough company does it, it is A-okay.
The automotive industry in the United States has made 1.53 trillion dollars (with a T) in revenue since 2000. In other words, they have a lot of dough to play around with. If the US didn’t have such an extensive road network surely that number would be far less, and because we have such an extensive road network and people selling us cars we can’t afford, we keep expanding outward.
This is the same reason we don’t have a better train system, it would mean less money for the car companies.
Not only do roads cost tax payer dollars, they cost you your own non-tax dollars to buy a car, and they make it harder to walk places. Roads take up 18% of total land area in cities. Without roads, cities could be smaller, more walkable, and more environmentally friendly.
LYOL
In the thru-hiking community there is a saying, “Hike Your Own Hike” (HYOH), which means to do what you want, it is your hike, enjoy it. As you might have guessed LYOL stands for “Live Your Own Life”.
I was thinking about this while driving home from work: When someone is recovering from an accident or addiction or some life altering event, getting a job is a huge step, but when nothing is “going wrong” in your life, there are higher expectations. Your parents probably aren’t that proud if you are a part time minimum wage employee after spending $100,000 on a four year degree.
But what if the nothing “going wrong” is exactly what is wrong. Let me tell you my own dilemma (and yes, this is going to be a privileged, whiny story about me not knowing what to do with my life, but isn’t that still a problem? I understand there are bigger fish to fry but I’ve got to live my life too. Aren’t we all just trying to be happy? Ahem, anyways…)
I graduated from a local university with a Bachelor’s degree. I am currently working in a decent paying, comfortable government job doing something I enjoy. (Sounds like the dream right?) Everything is going well, I am on a good career path, saving money for retirement and a house, and I even have a pension if I stick around long enough. Everything is as it should be, my parents are proud., but what if I’m not?
Everything is great on paper, and don’t get me wrong my job is great, but it isn’t a long distance hike. What if the so called “good life” everyone talks about, isn’t that good at all? I don’t really want to follow a career path, working for 40+ years and then going to live my life. I want to live it right now.
What if the things everyone expects from you is the exact thing you are trying to run away from? I’ve got the live my own life.
Many of these topics I could talk at great length about. Especially the last one, live your own life. It is so hard to get the thoughts down onto paper and come out as something that makes sense. I guess that comes with being a better writer and giving myself more time to produce these. Anyways, hopefully I got my point across alright. These are more for me than anyone else anyways, so just getting something down helps me.
Thanks for tuning in and see you next Friday.
