The Happiness Of Pursuit Part 14

The best stories come from near-disasters, but that doesn't mean they're much fun at the time. Once I started flying around the world every month, I also started making a series of dumb mistakes-double-booking myself on nonrefundable tickets, or showing up for flights I thought I'd reserved but hadn't. In some ways, I improved as I traveled more and more. I learned to pack a bag for two weeks in twenty minutes, and I rarely forgot something important. In other ways, however, I grew more careless. After I survived the first double-ticket debacle, it happened two more times.

In the Seych.e.l.les I made a huge error and, at the end of a four-night stay, misread the departure time for my return flight. Despite using the twenty-four-hour clock for years, for some reason I thought 20:00 was 10 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. I dutifully showed up more than two hours in advance, but as I walked into the check-in area, I noticed that no one else was there. Only a few flights a day left from the tiny airport, and as I stood there trying to puzzle it out, I heard a big whoosh! overhead. Hmmm, that's odd, I thought. Could that really be the only flight of the night taking off ten minutes early? Indeed, it was.

The mishap was completely my mistake and I felt terrible. Yet as bad as it was, I also knew I could probably find an escape hatch. I immediately went into travel survivor mode and started flagging down people to ask questions. Were there any other flights? When was the next one? I was supposed to fly on Etihad Airways to Abu Dhabi, but what if I took Qatar Airways to Doha and connected? Was there a Skype connection I could use to start calling airlines? I went back to the hotel and arranged to stay another night. That evening, I made an initial plan to get out the following day, and in the morning I was able to confirm the flight with two quick calls.

I finally took off on that flight with no real harm done, feeling sheepish about making such a dumb mistake, but also glad that I'd kept my cool and managed to sort everything out. When misadventure strikes, you can panic or you can figure it out. One of these solutions is better than the other.

The DIY Support Team If you've always felt like you don't fit in, one of the happiest experiences of your life will be discovering that there are others like you. Loneliness is part of many quests, but that doesn't mean you should always be lonely.

Some people I talked to felt strongly about not receiving help for their project. Others changed their minds as they went along. "Be open to contribution," wrote Sandi Wheaton, who traveled on Route 66 after being laid off at GM. "I used to try to do everything on my own, and then I realized this was a mistake. People want to help! So let them help."

Help can come in a variety of ways. Here are some examples of how people in this book were helped in their journeys.

* Gary Thorpe, who set out to produce the world's largest symphony, was a.s.sisted by the film team that was initially just doc.u.menting the project. After they stepped in, things moved a lot faster.

* Miranda Gibson, who spent more than four hundred days at the top of a eucalyptus tree in Tasmania, received hundreds of supportive emails and images from around the world on the one-year anniversary of her protest. Others sent donations or wrote letters to the Australian government on her behalf.

* Jia Jiang, who courted rejection through one hundred days of public experiments, relies on his wife as his best "idiot test." If he has a crazy idea that's worth pursuing, she cheers him on. If he has a crazy idea that's just crazy, she'll tell him that too.

* Howard Weaver, who led a team in taking down Alaska's leading newspaper, said that support came in all kinds of ways. In the early days, friends bought subscriptions to his planned paper, which didn't yet exist. Local bands played benefit concerts for free. Other supporters sold T-shirts door-to-door.

* Nancy Sathre-Vogel, matriarch of the "family on bikes" who cycled from Alaska to Argentina, said that there was hardly a day during their seventeen-thousand-mile journey when they weren't helped by someone. Whether it came in the form of bags of apples from strangers, offers of places to stay at guesthouses and hostels along the way, or emails from home, unexpected support became part of the routine.

Regrets

Laura Dekker, the teenager who sailed the world's oceans on her own, said that she didn't regret anything. "There were moments where I was like, 'What the h.e.l.l am I doing out here?'' " she told a CNN reporter at the end of the voyage, "but I never wanted to stop. It's a dream, and I wanted to do it."

Another way to think of it is this: Regret is what you should fear the most. If something is going to keep you awake at night, let it be the fear of not following your dream. Be afraid of settling.

When Nate Damm set out to walk across America, he felt anxious and regretful almost right away. First came the practical problems: His feet hurt and he kept getting wet. These problems were easily solved-just keep walking, your feet will eventually get used to it, and buy the umbrella you should have packed in the first place. The deeper problems were the ones in his head. Before he left, Nate and his girlfriend broke up. Since he worked for her parents, the loss of a job soon followed. His cat and dog lived with her, so ... he lost those too. It was like a bad country song: Lost my girlfriend, lost my job, lost my dog.

As Nate marched his way out of West Virginia, soaking wet from the rain and wincing at the blisters on his feet, he couldn't help wondering if he'd made the wrong decision. In the course of a single week, his life had completely flipped upside down.

His answer was different from Mark Boyle's. Nate overcame the doubt by looking forward. He thought about why he'd begun the walk in the first place. It wasn't for fame, it certainly wasn't for fortune, and he wasn't even trying to make a statement. He just had to do it-it was the crazy idea that wouldn't leave him alone, and the crazy idea demanded action. Nate kept going and his mood brightened. Things back at home would never again be the same, but he realized there was an upside to all the change. The road opened up with possibilities.

A continent away, Mark Boyle was almost instantly wrong when he set out from the docks of Dover, bound for India without a penny in his pocket. Failure came quickly as he realized his mission didn't translate on the sh.o.r.es of France, and soon he turned back to England feeling drained and embarra.s.sed. The first few weeks at home were bittersweet. It was good to see family and friends, but Mark also carried a sense of guilt at having given up. "Don't worry about it, mate," a friend told him-but it wasn't that simple. The quest was important to Mark. He'd sacrificed in preparing for it, and it was hard to face the fact that he'd turned back.

Yet he still clung to his values. As more time pa.s.sed, he began to see that the values themselves were what was truly important: embracing the "freeconomy" by choosing to live without money, and encouraging others to opt out of what he saw as excessive commercialism.

Hitchhiking to India was now off the list, but maybe there was another way he could live out those values.

Regrouping and reconsidering, Mark realized that he wasn't much of a world traveler. His interest in walking to India came from an attraction to Gandhi's lifestyle and philosophy, not from a desire to rough it across Afghanistan and other potentially hostile places. Instead of traveling, therefore, his new plan was simply to live without money.

He set up camp on an organic farm, trading three days' labor each week in return for a place to stay. He grew his own food, bathed in the river, and cycled to meetings with interested followers. Slowly he began speaking out again, owning up to his mistakes and positioning himself as a fellow learner instead of an expert who claimed to know it all.

His first quest had been strictly personal, but now Mark became an advocate for "life without money," using a solar-powered laptop to write articles for newspapers and blogs. He published a manifesto outlining his ideas. He created a forum with more than thirty thousand members, and he organized a "Freeconomy Festival" in Bristol that drew hundreds of curious attendees.

After the failure of his walking trip to India, the cashless Mark Boyle originally planned to pursue his new experiment for one year. More than two years later, he was still going strong. The new quest was the right one.

Remember.

The right kind of misadventures-the ones that yield information-can produce confidence.

If you're going to worry about something, worry about the cost of not pursuing your dream.

Sometimes stopping is the right decision. When considering a shift, ask: Is my heart still in this?

1"Be Wrong as Fast as You Can," New York Times Magazine, January 6, 2013.

2"When the facts change, I change my mind. When my information changes, I alter my conclusions." -commonly attributed to John Maynard Keynes.

III.

Destination.

Chapter 15.

Transformation.

When you have completed 95 percent of your journey, you are only halfway there.

-j.a.pANESE PROVERB.

Lesson: AS YOU MAKE PROGRESS TOWARD A SMALL GOAL, THE BIGGER VISION EXPANDS.

In the end, all the cliches hold true: If you can't change the world, at least you can change yourself.

When I look back at what I wrote at the beginning of my journey, much of it seems naive or simplistic. I was taking on a challenge! I wanted to see the world! The world was ... big. I didn't actually have much to say, it seems.

But this is how it usually happens. Part of it is the process of getting older, and part of it comes from the experience itself. In my case I realized that much of travel was about being open to different ways of life and changes outside my control. When I found myself getting frustrated, more often than not the problem was my own expectations.

As I was writing the first draft of this book, I took a trip to an island in Malaysia. I thought it would be a good place to visit while I worked on the ma.n.u.script, and it was. But when I mentioned where I was going to a few well-traveled friends, they were horrified. "That place is a tourist trap! Why would you go there?"

I went because I liked it ... perhaps leading to another lesson: When it comes to travel, you should create your own itinerary and not have it be dictated by others.

Process vs. Achievement (To Nando's and Beyond)

People who pursue quests are often motivated by achievement, process, or simply a belief in daily adventure. How do these motivations affect what happens toward the end?

1. The achievement-motivated person wants to accomplish something (scale the wall, rid the empire of invaders, and so forth).

For some people, the motivator is a measurable challenge that will take a long time to complete. My brother Ken once sent me a link to a promotion from Nando's, a South African restaurant chain. I'd been introduced to Nando's while living in Africa several years earlier, and had also visited their restaurants in Dubai, Beirut, and Singapore. The email was ent.i.tled "Your next challenge!" When I clicked on the link, I saw what Ken meant: Nando's was offering a lifetime's worth of free meals to anyone who could prove they'd visited each of their restaurant locations in more than twenty countries.

For a moment, I felt oddly excited by the idea ... before realizing how ridiculous it was. Would I really consider going all over the world in search of a lifetime pa.s.s at a fast-food restaurant where the average meal costs less than $10?1 Yet here I was, thinking about the number of locations I'd already visited and kicking myself for not saving the receipts.

An achievement-motivated person will consider, if only briefly, visiting every location of a global restaurant chain. Everyone else will immediately dismiss the idea. Fortunately, most people are called to do something greater than seeking out french fries across the globe.

2. The process-motivated person wants to do something (collect or build in a step-by-step fashion, go on a long journey, and so forth).

Isabelle Leibler, who trained an untrainable horse, says that she was almost entirely motivated by the process of training. The achievement (winning the national and North American dressage championships) was just a by-product. Every day it was all about completing a checklist, measuring progress, and making a plan for the next day.

Sasha Martin, who planned to cook a meal from every country for her young family, said that the steady process of "one country, one week" kept her going. There was a chart and a countdown. Without the clear sense of tackling the cooking project in stages, seeing countries get ticked off and planning ahead to the next one, she says she might have given up. Many other people I talked to also mentioned the importance of measurable progress. Count things down! Check them off! Be aware of your progress as you proceed down a path.

A Tale of Two Travelers

Nate Damm and Matt Krause both undertook walking quests, attempting to cross entire countries. Nate trekked across America in seven and a half months, and Matt made it across Turkey in six. Yet when I asked them whether they focused more on process or achievement, their answers couldn't be more different. Here's Nate, who started in Maine and ended in San Francisco: I'm definitely not motivated by achievement. I just do what I like every day, and good things seem to happen as a result. I rarely thought about getting to San Francisco and completing the trek. In fact, I was upset when I actually did make it there, because then it was over and I had to go home for a while. The arrival at the ocean represented the completion of a big achievement, but it was really just another city. My experiences in a small town in Kansas, for example, were much more meaningful to me.

And here's Matt, who started on Turkey's western coast and ended 1,305 miles later at the Iranian border: Love the result, not the process. It sure helps if you enjoy the process, because you're going to have to spend a lot of time there before you see any results. But still, the process can kiss my a.s.s. Throw processes under the bus if they aren't getting the desired result.

Which perspective is better? Perhaps the best way to think of it is that the two are inextricably intertwined. You can't achieve anything deeply satisfying without a drawn-out process leading up to it-and yet process demands a goal. You can't love one without at least appreciating the other.

Time Makes Changes

It's inevitable: Undertake a quest or any long, challenging project, and you won't come out of it the same. As I came to the end of my own mission, I talked with others who'd either finished what they started or were considerably under way. How were they changed through their quest? A few key themes emerged.

Change Number One: Independence and Confidence Isabelle Leibler, who trained the untrainable horse, shared how the struggle had given her strength: I definitely feel wiser. Before this quest, I was a mentally young athlete. I was fiery and dedicated and I wanted to give everything my all because somehow that would determine a win. However, following the quest, I realized that the only true strength you will ever need comes from you, and you alone. I became really independent and confident as a result of this quest, knowing that going forward your heart and mind are all you have when you're in the middle of an arena with ten thousand people watching. You have to embrace it, tighten it, and then let it all explode.

Nate Damm, who walked across America, experienced an entire personality change: Before the walk, I was really quiet, shy, and uncomfortable in most social situations. The best thing that the walk did for me was make me confident that I could handle even the toughest of tests and scenarios, from knocking on the door of a stranger's house and asking if I could camp on their property to almost getting run over by big trucks. Every day had its challenges, and I'm actually very thankful for all of them.

Gabriel Wyner, an opera singer, began his language studies simply with the desire to improve his singing skills. As he mastered several tough languages in a short period of time, he shifted his focus: The quest took over a great deal of my life. I set out to become a more expressive singer through languages, and ended with an obsession that is competing with my singing for attention and time. At least for the moment, languages are my life; I spend every day writing about them, learning them, and reading about them.

Change Number Two: Maturation Rita J. King directs Science House, a global community and event s.p.a.ce that helps businesses brainstorm ideas related to humans and technology. In an email from a trip to Italy, she provided a good example of how the process of pursuit can create a deeper perspective: I have always been a playful, inquisitive person, focused on science and art, an avid learner, a pa.s.sionate observer and partic.i.p.ant in the human condition. But I am mature now. I listen much more. I feel comfortable letting things unfold even while I maintain a breakneck pace with my own work. My concepts of ident.i.ty have become far more fluid.

In his early days of silence and walking, John Francis was a rebel. Part of not speaking to anyone and refusing all motorized transport was an act of rebellion. It was a peaceful protest, but John acknowledged being imbued with the spirit of "fighting the man" as he a.s.serted his independence.

In one scene from his memoir, he became angry at a man who took his photo as he sat beside a gas station. The man's car was a state vehicle, and John worried that officials from the state of California were somehow going to exploit his protest for the state's benefit. He visited a lawyer friend who informed him of a public city council hearing held once a month in Sacramento. John went to the hearing-on foot, of course-and pleaded his case through a sign language interpreter. The comptroller running the meeting was kind, and a.s.sured John that nothing bad would happen with his photograph.

Later John realized what seemed obvious to everyone else: Maybe it's not that big of a deal that someone took a photo of him. The state of California may have its problems, but plotting to use John's image in a nefarious way is probably not one of them. Besides, from a practical standpoint, it didn't make sense to get upset every time someone wanted a photo. John was African American, with a scraggly beard and a large backpack he carried everywhere. He'd also begun carrying a banjo and playing it as he walked along the road. It's not every day that you meet someone who fits such a description, smiling but not speaking to anyone. There are going to be photos.

In the end, John made an even bigger change. He decided to start speaking again, and a few years later, he even began riding in cars. Here's how he explained the change: After twenty-two years of walking, my decision not to use motorized vehicles had become a prison, and only I could set myself free. While I still continued my walking, I also decided to begin to fly and use motorized transportation to do other work. The lesson for me was to always revisit my decisions in the light of new knowledge and information. Don't be afraid to change.2 Change Number Three: Small Vision Bigger Vision Most of my early travels were solo excursions. It was just me and the world, and I didn't mind being alone. As I made progress toward the goal, though, I began to connect with more and more people. Readers would say h.e.l.lo in airports and coffee shops. I held meetups on every continent, where I learned more about the local culture than I would have with my nose stuck in a guidebook.

And then, just as I was nearing the end of the quest, I began to see that the next big adventure would be different. I'm not the first person to visit every country in the world, and I didn't plan on going to the moon, reaching the deepest part of the ocean, or anything else like that. (Feel free to take on these goals for yourself-someone should!) I wasn't the greatest traveler in the world, and probably not the greatest anything. What I realized, though, was that I was making a shift from individually minded goals to group-minded goals. A big part of my next focus, and perhaps even a quest of its own, would be engaging more with the great people I met around the world and whom I regularly heard from online.

I wasn't the only person on a quest to find his perspective shifting. Many people talked about how their initial idea came to seem small as they matured and gained confidence. Sasha Martin, who set out to cook meals from around the world for her family in Oklahoma, saw her project quickly expand: I expected the adventure to change our eating habits, but I didn't expect it to affect all other aspects of my life. My focus has shifted from our diets, which are now vastly improved, to sharing a message of peace through understanding at schools, dinners, and other major events. I am also writing a memoir about the experience and will build up to a big feast called "the Two-Hundred-Foot Table."

Tom Allen, who cycled from England to Iran, stopping along the way to fall in love, saw his initial quest of self-discovery become much more: Instead of completing a single-minded lap of the planet and returning home victorious, as many others have done, I found myself reconnected with people by life on the road. I met and married my wife in Armenia, and launched a series of storytelling projects that has grown to inspire others. And alongside all of this I continue traveling on my original quest. Having pushed the limits of bicycle travel, from roadless Outer Mongolia to the Arctic in winter to crossing the Sahara and Afar deserts, I want to see how much further it can go.

Allie Turner, who set out to visit every basilica in the United States with her boyfriend Jason, adopted a more active approach to life: It's given us a greater awareness and appreciation for the little things. We've come to recognize that there is a large amount of magnificent architecture and history waiting for us, most of it in small-town America where many of the basilicas reside. We spend more time looking for adventure on the way to where we're going, rather than waiting for adventures to come to us, or making elaborate plans to visit some of the more common cities to look for adventure.

If You Don't Like the Menu, Leave the Restaurant Don't settle: Don't finish bad books. If you don't like the menu, leave the restaurant. If you're not on the right path, get off it.

-Chris Brogan A friend of mine gave notice from her job as an a.s.sociate professor at a small private university. She taught only the cla.s.ses she wanted, and only in the way she wanted. The administration supported her with academic freedom. She had a good salary and full benefits, with lots of breaks and every summer off to pursue other projects.

Why leave? "Because it was time," she said. Just because it was a good job didn't mean that she had to do it forever. Everything has a season.

Some of our mutual friends didn't understand why she was closing the door on an opportunity that had served her well. According to her, though, she had to leave to find something new. The right time to leave is when you're ready, not just when someone else makes the decision for you.

Do all good things come to an end? That's a debate for another book. But when a good thing reaches its natural end, don't drag it out. If you don't like the menu, leave the restaurant.

Change Number Four: Empowerment When I talk with people about self-employment, I often tell the story of how excited I was to earn $1.26 one day in Belgium many years ago. I was pa.s.sing through town for a couple of days and had conducted an online experiment with some new ads. I set up a very small test and went out for the day, traveling to Luxembourg and back. When I returned in the evening I saw that the test was successful: I'd made $1.26 in net income. It may not sound like a gold rush, but I was excited because I knew it represented something greater. If that small test worked, the odds were promising that it would work on a larger scale. It was the best dollar I'd ever made.

I felt something similar when I entered the final stretch of thirty countries. I still had some big challenges ahead, including a number of destinations that had eluded me for years, but I had little doubt that I could see it through. I can take on the world, I thought. There's nothing I can't do.

If you can't wrap your head around going everywhere, or producing a symphony with hundreds of performers, or undertaking any of the other quests I've described so far, it's important to remember that dreams tend to grow as you pursue them.