The Happiness Of Pursuit Part 16

Maybe these aren't the final answers, or at least they shouldn't be.

Howard Weaver rose from failed attempts at tailing mobsters and, after a long drinking session, throwing rocks at the Anchorage Times building to become a lead protagonist in an epic battle to take down the establishment and alter the balance of political conversation in Alaska. The early years were rough, bringing two divorces and a struggle with alcohol.

By the time he took control of the editor's office at the Daily News, the Times' compet.i.tion, he'd quit drinking, settled down with a longtime partner, and focused steadfastly on taking down the enemy. The final stage of the battle would last a dozen years, but as Howard saw it, the truth finally won out. When the Times shuttered its doors in 1992, the long-hoped-for victory had been secured.

Waiting around the corner for Howard, though, was an even bigger question than those he'd faced during the spirited newspaper wars: What's next? "Now I was tired and disoriented," he wrote. "Though we'd won what I thought was lasting security for the Daily News and its fiercely independent journalism, the absence of the Times was oddly haunting .... A large part of how I'd defined myself simply was no longer there."

This wasn't just an existential crisis; Howard really didn't know what to do next. He asked for a sabbatical and went to England. He earned a master's degree, planning to return to the helm, but when he returned to Alaska after the year's leave he saw that things were different. A new publisher was in charge, with vastly different ideas. Right from the beginning, the new publisher and Howard found themselves at odds, disagreeing on editorial positions and even the daily reporting style that had been established through precedent over many years.

Finally Howard realized that the situation wasn't going to change anytime soon. He had enough clout to continue to fight the daily battle over editorials, but was worn out from fighting the bigger war. A native son who'd lived in Alaska for almost all of his life, he reluctantly moved to California to take on a new job. Once he'd won the war against the Times, things were never quite the same. Even the departure from the Daily News didn't go well, when the publisher declined to hire his close friend and chosen successor. The paper's editorial voice continued to shift against Howard's hard-fought philosophy, and in the end he adopted a mixed sense of resignation and regret as he moved on to other work.3

But Where Is Home, Actually?

After traveling the world for eight years, Benny Lewis calls himself a "humanist," meaning that he loves people and values their worth more than anything else. Benny grew up in Ireland, a predominately Catholic country, and after university gradually expanded his worldview by traveling.

I've hung out with Benny on three continents so far, beginning at a meetup in Thailand and continuing to a tour together in Scandinavia. Recently, when we met in a coffee shop in Oregon, he told me about his conversion to humanism. It wasn't a rebellion against his faith, he said, it was just a result of gaining a general awareness of the rest of the world.

We talked about how we'd each adopted habits of different cultures as we moved from place to place. I became a vegetarian right before traveling to India for the first time, and the food of South Asia soon became my favorite. Though I still liked America and enjoyed living there much of the time, I felt more like a world citizen. The distinguishing marks of a pa.s.sport didn't determine my ident.i.ty; my experiences and values did.

The more you experience something outside of what you've known, the more open-minded you become ... but this worldview can also be somewhat alienating, especially to people at home. Another friend, Shannon O'Donnell, left home at the age of twenty-four on a voyage of self-discovery. She originally set out for Los Angeles, as far away from her home in Florida as she could initially imagine. An acquaintance who'd spent several months in India inspired her to look further, and she prepared to go overseas.

Shannon's short-term goal was to spend a year abroad, a journey that was personally enriching but not terribly unusual. She backpacked around Australia and Southeast Asia, visiting almost ten countries, and then went on to visit several more in Europe. "The path I had been on wasn't working," she said later, "so I thought a radical change of pace would give me a way to live a more purposeful life. I wanted to learn from the people and places I encountered on my travels."

She described the year abroad as "boot-camp to life," and shared how she completed a ten-day meditation course in Nepal despite having little previous experience with the practice. The course was challenging, both mentally and physically, and she had little desire to continue after the end-but even though intensive mediation wasn't for her, she gained an appreciation for how others find happiness.

Shannon has often been p.r.o.ne to illness, and in Laos she became very ill with dysentery. In a low moment, feeling like she might not even make it through the night, she made a bargain with the universe: If I get better, I'll trade my recovery for a more traditional life. I'll get on a plane and pursue the things that most people want: a home, a spouse, and children.

Except the things that most people wanted weren't what she wanted, at least not right away. Shannon made it through the long night, and as she recovered she looked back on the bargain and realized how foolish it was: "At that moment I blamed the very idea of my aimless wandering for my illness, but as I healed I realized that the illness was a setback, not a sign that I was on the wrong path."

The original journey of one year has now lasted more than five, and for much of the time she has been accompanied by her eleven-year-old niece, who joined her in Asia for an immersion experience like no other.

The Real World Is What You Make It

Perhaps the biggest adjustment to life at "home," wherever home may be, is understanding that you're different from when you started. You've gained experience and seen things that others haven't. To quote the words of Steve Kamb, who used the a.n.a.logy of a video game with me in describing his quest, you've "leveled up." In the same way that the first level of a game can become boring and repet.i.tive, once you've leveled up, you may not be able to go back to the same habits and routine.

Several people I spoke with for this book described how, after they'd finished their quests, they'd heard a certain phrase uttered by their friends and family. The phrase was "real life" or "the real world," and the words were sometimes delivered callously. "Guess you'll have to get back to real life now" was one way of putting it. "That would never work in the real world" was another. At other times phrases like these were invoked more innocently, perhaps by someone who just couldn't relate to what had happened during the quest.

Tom Allen said that people who applied this kind of logic had it exactly backward. "Life on the road was the real world," he reflected. "Back in England, it was modern society that seemed to be a place of isolation and abstractions."

How do you go back? In many ways, you don't. You can't.

In Tom's case, he was also disappointed that at least some of the quest had been tainted by its own inst.i.tutionalization. What started as an adventure in self-discovery had become a global endeavor, complete with sponsors who expected reports and media outlets that were eager to interview him. He finally had to unwind what he created and "deinst.i.tutionalize the beast," focusing once again on the no-strings-attached journey he'd longed for from the beginning.

Recovery

To climb out of a post-quest funk, you start by realizing that the real world is what you make of it. You've grown, you've changed, and you can't go back. You're not the same, so don't expect everyone else to be the same either.

Next, you start again. You need a new quest and a new mission.

In the foothills of central California, a flag flies above a small ranch home. The home belongs to Howard Weaver, the newspaper editor who challenged a giant and won. The flag is the former property of the Anchorage Times. Is it petty to fly the flag of your defeated rival? Some might say so ... but Howard treasures the flag as a reminder of his principled fight for truth and justice in his native Alaska.

In a historic San Francisco apartment building a couple hours north of Howard's ranch, Alicia Ostarello settled back into life as a copywriter. She kept only one memento from her journey: a postcard from South Dakota, which she attached to the mirror in her room. She'd moved on to other things, regrouping from the emotional experience of ending a big project-but every once in a while, she'd see the postcard and would remember driving mile after mile throughout the country, counting down the states and meeting new people at every stop.

Alicia and Howard both turned out OK.

Meanwhile, Meghan Hicks finished her fourth Marathon des Sables race and started planning for the next. She continued to train every day.

Remember.

Sometimes quests don't tie up well. Sometimes it's hard at the end.

If it's hard to explain the totality of a quest, focus on a few stories.

The real world is what you make of it. After completing a quest, the next steps are up to you.

1Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi: "Things are changing. And sometimes the line between friend and foe is blurred. Now more than ever."

2It's important to eat well when saving the world.

3In his memoir, Howard quotes H. G. Wells: "It is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer, we presently imagine we own."

Chapter 17.

Finale.

It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.

-PAULO COELHO.

Lesson: THE END IS THE BEGINNING.

How did it feel when Nate Damm arrived at the Pacific Ocean after walking across America? It was amazing, of course. All that surf in the San Francis...o...b..y, all those people welcoming him in person and sending congratulations online. But he was always a quiet guy, and this sense of arrival was bittersweet. The quest had given him hope, ident.i.ty, and a recurring task: Every day, he simply had to get up and walk. Once his feet touched the cold water of the bay, he no longer had to do that.

In one of our conversations, he even used the word annoyed when describing the end-as if he was distressed that the quest that had consumed his life the past seven months was now over.

How did it feel when Gary Thorpe, the Australian cla.s.sical music enthusiast, saw the production of the Gothic Symphony brought to life? Reflecting on the performance immediately afterward, he was effusive. "It's an imperishable monument, like the Pyramids or Stonehenge," he said. "The whole thing was breathtaking. The audience response was just as I'd hoped for all that time."

He was thrilled it had happened and couldn't be happier.

I thought of Nate and Gary when I touched down in Oslo, Norway, after a short flight from London Heathrow. I'm not sure it was a Pyramid-worthy moment. There was no two-hundred-member string section waiting to perform. Instead, the immigration clerk held my pa.s.sport to the scanner and asked a couple of questions without looking at me. "Why have you come to Norway?"

I decided it would be best to omit the long story, so I told a short and truthful one: "I've always wanted to come."

After a few mishaps in the final few countries, everything had gone well with getting to Guinea Bissau and Kiribati, the penultimate stops. In fact, I began my visit to Kiribati on New Year's Day, a full three months in advance of the final country visit in Norway. It was perhaps fitting that I ended up stranded on Kiribati when the twice-weekly flight to Fiji encountered mechanical issues and had to turn around, leaving me and the six other pa.s.sengers stuck in the cla.s.sic "no way off the island" scenario.

Kiribati doesn't rate high on most "must-see" travel lists, and I was eager to get back to Fiji and eventually homeward. I reminded myself of the ultimate travel skill (above all, a traveler must learn to wait) and reflected that this would be the very last time I was stranded, at least on this particular ten-year journey. Eventually the plane was fixed and we hopped on board for the three-hour flight. Just like that, it was done. Only one country to go!

Over the next couple of months I thought about how the adventure was almost complete. All I had to do was go to Norway, which presumably wouldn't be difficult. I thought of the line from Ithaca: "To arrive there is your ultimate goal, but do not hurry." I didn't hurry, and when the time came to board the flight for Heathrow and then the short connection to Oslo, I felt settled.

Every quest has an end. This story's ending arrived when I completed the immigration process and walked out to the airport train that would soon depart for the city. Or perhaps it ended as I went on a forty-eight-hour "Norway in a Nutsh.e.l.l" tour with my family and a few close friends. Maybe it ended the day after that, when nearly two hundred additional people arrived for an "End of the World" celebration we held for anyone who wanted to come.

The party was a good demonstration of how my life and the quest itself had evolved over the years. Whereas I began on my own, traipsing around as a solo traveler on an independent journey, I ended surrounded by good friends and other interesting people. Readers from more than twenty countries showed up. One guy had hitchhiked from Portugal on his own three-week journey of adventure, timing his arrival in Norway to enter our End of the World party with his backpack still on. Some people had specifically come to congratulate me, and the thought that they'd cross borders and buy plane tickets just for that was humbling.

But fortunately, it wasn't all about me. By now the adventure had grown to be about other people as well, and many of those in attendance were busy following dreams of their own and making connections with one another.

After the end of the world in Norway I went to Hong Kong, winding down another round-the-world ticket on the long way back to my home in Portland. When the Cathay Pacific jet touched down and I walked through the terminal, I had all the time in the world. My ticket was fully flexible-I could go on to Bangkok the next day as scheduled, or I could stay in Hong Kong as long as I liked.

I cleared immigration, took the train to the city, and went looking for my hotel. Somehow I became lost. The rain was coming down as I took another wrong turn, schlepping my bags and looking in vain for a taxi. I was mad at myself for getting lost yet again, yet I appreciated the headline: "Man Visits Every Country; Can't Find Hotel He's Been to a Dozen Times." Typical.

I found the hotel eventually, as I always do. The next morning I stepped outside and wandered down Nathan Road, a place I'd come to know well since my very first trip to Hong Kong many years ago. That time I rode the bus in from the airport, stopping outside Cameron Road and a series of cheap hotels that were perched high above the city in residential buildings.

I stopped to look up at the Star Guest House, where I'd stayed for three nights on a trip long ago. I remember falling asleep at two p.m. and not waking up until after dark-one of the first times I made that mistake, but it turned out just fine since I spent much of the night wandering the streets. On a warm April day seven years later, Kowloon was buzzing with vendors offering fried insects and Portuguese egg tarts.

I'd made it to the end of the world, but Hong Kong was the same. Everyone else was going about their business, thinking their own thoughts and living their own life. In the city's financial sector, men and women in suits were hurrying out for a quick lunch before returning to their desks.

The next day I went to Bangkok and experienced similar flashbacks from my early years of traveling in Thailand. A familiar montage presented itself: the monks on the subway, the bustle of street traffic, and the narrow alleyways that connected much of the city.

Finally, I headed back to Portland via the madhouse of LAX airport. One more homecoming! Except there was nowhere else to go this time. There was no visa application to send to the emba.s.sy of South Sudan, no more plane tickets to be purchased on Air Moldova. My journey was complete.

Hundreds of pages earlier, I said that this book wasn't just a study of what other people have done. The core message is that a quest can bring purpose and meaning to your life, too.

Why pursue a quest? Because each of us in our lives is writing our own story, and we only have one chance to get it right. Consider the words of Alicia Ostarello, who recovered from ending a relationship to taking on a dating mission that was simultaneously uncomfortable and enriching. Here's what she said when the quest was over: "This is my story. No one can take it from me. And that is what has made everything entirely worth it."

At age sixty-eight, Phoebe Snetsinger had slowed her manic travel pace from years past, but she continued to undertake expeditions. The next stop on her itinerary was Madagascar, a country she was visiting for the fourth time. On the previous trips she'd seen the vast majority of local bird species, so this was a "cleanup trip" in pursuit of approximately twenty species that remained elusive. Seventeen years had elapsed since her "fatal" diagnosis, and while she was frailer than before, she scurried over trails despite having sprained an ankle. She also struggled with numerous other ailments due to advancing age, yet her notes from the trip are full of detailed descriptions of new birds she'd seen, as well as various tasks she needed to complete for upcoming trips.

Early on the morning of November 23, 1999, Phoebe and the rest of the group were traveling in a van toward another nature reserve. Phoebe lay down on the seats to nap. At some point, the driver fell asleep as well, or otherwise lost concentration. Traveling at full speed, the van sc.r.a.ped a concrete post and then tipped over on its side. The other pa.s.sengers had minor injuries and were shaken up, but Phoebe took the brunt of the impact when the van tipped over. She died instantly.

Unbalanced as it may have been, the second half of Phoebe's life was spent in the way she intended. Like many others who pursue quests and big adventures, she'd learned to think differently about risk. As she wrote in her memoir: "It has become ever more clear to me that if I had spent my life avoiding any and all potential risks, I would have missed doing most of the things that have comprised the best years of my life."

"The game never really ends," she continued in the last page of her memoir before the final trip to Africa. "It's simply a matter of perspective. There's always, as long as one lives, some new place to go, some exciting new thing to find." Yet for Phoebe, her quest met its end in Madagascar. She'd devoted nearly two decades to seeing more birds than anyone in history, she'd achieved her goal of breaking the world record, and she would have kept going if she could.

Dear Reader, Thanks for joining me on the mini-quest of reading this book. If you enjoyed the journey, I'd love for you to share your story with our community at FindtheQuest.com. You can also write to me by visiting ChrisGuillebeau.com.

I hope to see you on the road somewhere.

Chris Guillebeau.

#FindtheQuest.

Appendix 1.

Lessons from the Journey.

From my own 193-country journey to the stories of many other people who were kindly willing to share, I've tried to extract and convey the lessons of modern-day quests. The experiences of fifty people pursuing big goals varies immensely, but a number of lessons are close to universal: Unhappiness can lead to new beginnings. If you're not happy with your life, or even if you feel a faint stirring to do something different, pay attention to the dissatisfaction. Ask yourself "What if" questions. What if I actually pursued that dream or idea? What if I made that big change? Discontent can be a source of growth and inspiration.

Adventure is for everyone. You can have the life you want no matter who you are. There's a quest waiting for you to find, claim, or create.

Everyone has a calling. Follow your pa.s.sion. Pay attention to the things that excite you and the things that bother you. Remember Jiro Ono, the sushi chef from Tokyo who talked about feeling victorious over a particularly nice tuna, and remember Miranda Gibson, who lived in the treetops of Tasmania for more than a year in protest of illegal logging. Your pa.s.sion may not matter to anyone else, but if it matters to you, don't ignore it.

Every day matters. The awareness of our mortality can help us pursue a goal. We all have a limited amount of time on earth. Those who live in active awareness of this reality are more likely to identify goals and make progress toward them. Or to put it another way: Everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives.

Not everyone needs to believe in your dream, but you do. The support and understanding of others will vary. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about your quest, but if you don't have sufficient motivation to see it through, it will be tough going.

Before beginning a quest, count the cost. In the early days of my journey to every country, someone criticized it by saying all it required was a certain amount of time and money. I later realized that this perspective could actually be helpful. If I clearly understood exactly what was involved in "going everywhere," and if I then began working on each part of the goal step-by-step, it no longer seemed overwhelming. Whatever you choose to do, count the cost as much as you can.

We are motivated by progress and achievement. It feels good to check things off. Lists are both fun and motivational. We enjoy breaking things down step-by-step and incrementally conquering big challenges.

We can't always opt out of monotony, but we can choose which form it takes. Odysseus fought off sea monsters and escaped from an island prison, but he also endured a lot of boring days at sea. Most quests consist of a set of milestones that take a long time to reach. To stay on track, choose forward motion-keep making choices that bring you closer to the goal, even if it seems like reaching the end will take forever.