Month: December 2019

“T’was blind but now I see”

In my last post, I commented upon how a book that I’d recently read had impacted me and made things more clear regarding happiness, my happiness specifically and how I now had a better understanding of what made me happy.

In The Happiness of Pursuit, the author had suggested making a list of goals, quests or journeys that were important to each of us. My list is in the previous post but there was one that troubled me.

I’d included in my list that I’d like to perform a random act of kindness everyday for a year. As I lay awake early one morning I began to think about this quest. I began to question whether I could achieve that goal or, was I setting myself up to fail.

My concern was not whether I was good enough or motivated enough to perform these acts but, would they be worthy enough acts to qualify. Was honestly greeting someone and wishing them well enough?

I guess I thought that these acts needed to be extraordinary or noteworthy to qualify, something memorable. I was doubting that I could come up with this type of gesture on a daily basis. At the same time, I was concerned that I would count trivial gestures in the absence of a great ones.

Fortunately, a friend helped me see the error in my thought process. While I was thinking grand, she distilled it down to the manageable by reminding me that if it came from the heart and was genuine, the scale was not important. The answers to my questions, were there before me, in plain sight, not seen by a man looking in the wrong place.

I don’t know if learned a new lesson today but if not, I was reminded of one that my Grandma Jones taught me a long time ago. You don’t have to look far from home to find happiness.

Vanishing Point

One definition of the vanishing point is ‘the point at which receding parallel lines viewed in perspective appear to converge‘. Actually, it’s only an illusion whether on paper or a lonely road in West Texas, in fact, the road continues on.

For some time now, I’ve been trying to figure out what my 2017 Camino meant, if it had any meaning at all or, was it just one step in my personal journey that is now waiting for the next step to be placed in front of the last one.

I’ve read other people’s accounts, I’ve spent many hours contemplating this question, I’ve talked with friends and family and still, no breakthrough.  While in Minneapolis several weeks ago, my oldest friend, Bill, asked me if the meaning of the talisman, my bandana that I’d left at Finisterre, had become more clear.  I told him that it hadn’t and he reminded me that he told me 2 years ago that the meaning may never become clear.  He encouraged me to continue to work on it and that it may be a long and possibly disappointing quest.

A couple weeks ago, this same old friend recommended a book to me. He thought that with all my wanderings which included the physical, emotional and spiritual realms that maybe this book would speak to some of the questions that I was searching for answers to.  The book is The Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau.

The entire book is about people like me who have discovered or are searching for what makes them happy.  We’re all familiar with the expression ‘the pursuit of happiness’.  Most of us will also admit that this pursuit is often elusive.  What the author points out though and it’s in the title, what if happiness is in fact in the pursuit?  For me, this struck home immediately, I understood exactly what he was trying to convey.

At the end of my Camino, as I sat overlooking the ocean at Finisterre, a place where many have sat, thinking, contemplating and meditating, I felt a profound sense of emptiness.  I thought that I’d feel complete or content and I did but in other ways, I also felt hollow.

My hollowness was not a disappointment, I felt very content with my travels across Spain, the adventure, experience, mental rest and the people I’d met including a German woman sitting 50 feet away who is now a close friend.  The Camino is a strange place.

All of my questions, searches, aborted attempts at putting the jumble of thoughts going through my head into words now started to become more clear as I read this book.  I began to realize that my happiness was in the journey, the destination or completion was just a logical place to begin the next adventure or quest as Guillebeau calls it.

The hollowness was not a negative about what I’d done but a realization that like the vast Atlantic Ocean which was laid out in front of me at the End of the World, the hollowness was just a realization that I’d finished one quest and I needed to find another.

Another thing that’s become clear is that journeys, quests or goals come in all forms.  I love planning, most of my friends certainly know this.  The planning is part of my quest or the quest  du jour.  Learning about a place, thing or person is part of my journey.  Going, doing and experiencing is yet another part.  Finishing is another but it’s an illusion, like the vanishing point it’s not the end but in fact, a continuation to the next episode of my life.

Guillebeau suggests making a list of things you’d like to do, a bucket list of sorts.  This list can be large quests or small.  Simple or complex.  Expensive or cheap, even free.  My list (below) consists of the first things that came to mind, some simple some more involved, all interesting to me for some reason. And, this list is by no means all inclusive it is, only the beginning down a long road.

Putting this together, contemplating how I will accomplish these brings a smile to my face.  The happiness of pursuit!

  1. Fast for 24 hours.
  2. No alcohol for a month.
  3. Perform a random act of kindness every day for a year.
  4. Visit all of the countries of the world that begin with ‘S’.
  5. Write a book about travel as we age.
  6. Improve my Spanish language skills to a conversational level.
  7. Walk the CF one more time, slowly.
  8. Lose 25 lbs.