I was recently reading Jon Krakauer’s ‘Into The Wild’, the protagonist Chris McCandless after graduating from college in 1991 high grades from Emory University ceased communication with his family, gave away his college fund to Oxfam, and went hitchhiking to Alaska walking alone into wilderness.
Four years later his decomposed dead body was found by a hunter. What emerges from this story is a version of wilderness that is hard, a place where one can probably find oneself. McCandless was a brilliant young person with a soul itching to wander, a free human who definitely lived a life that was less ordinary. Some say that he paid the gravest price for the love of adventure and solitude whereas some argue that he lived a life the way he chose it to be.
While this might be an extreme example I am quoting, but this is what the millennial generation is like and we relate to. We have an urge to live a life less ordinary, being footloose exhilarates us. But are somehow either not willing or are unable to unplug ourselves from the secure world we are in.
What holds us back is the fear of going wrong, fear of failing and disappointment. Chris might have been highly callous and foolish for what he did but at the same time didn’t he live life the way he wanted? Pursuing his dreams. Something all of us crave to but most of us fail to do.
We refrain ourselves from doing a lot of things because of the ‘risks’ involved. We feel we won’t be ‘sheltered’ enough, and that stops us from accepting challenges.Our apprehensions lead us to walk on the stress-free and easy path. We tend to do what is expected out of us and not what we would want to do.
Chris’s journey was an ambitious struggle from start to finish. In the end the struggles are just a part of the journey. Revel in the hardships that lend to your expedition and become part of your character.
In this great big world, we are nothing but a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things and so are our problems. Always ask yourself “Will this matter next week, next month, or ten years from now?” Stress and worry destroy happiness, so let things go. If you are not happy doing something, why do it?
It is easy for us to find excuses to not follow our dreams and take up challenges to fulfill those dreams. There are always a million reasons not to do something but what we need is to keep our dreams in sight. If our dreams are unwavering there is nothing that can stop us from venturing ‘into the wild.’
Live Deliberately. No fear. No compromise.