How To Disconnect From The World And Gain A Greater Appreciation

Written on August 24, 2007 by Tezza

Friday’s weekly guide to Life Balance from 4EvaYoung.com

“I don’t want to come to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” -Diane Ackerman

Living in the middle of a concrete jungle makes it hard to appreciate nature. The closest thing you are to nature often times is the local park cleared for sporting events with trees dotted around the edges. In the midst of our overburdened city life, we can often times forget to simply appreciate simple things like a clear night sky. I too under appreciated the virtues of nature and how much going back to nature can have on maintaining a healthy and stress free life.

I have however, made an active decision to change all that. It came about thanks to a trip I am planning to complete the Camino de Santiago listed on my Life Goals. If you haven’t heard about the Camino before it is a medieval Christian pilgrimage going back over a thousand years. It involves trekking for hundreds of kilometers by foot to reach the Cathedral where the apostle St James is buried.

Since my fitness is nothing to write home about I took to training for the Camino by hiking in National Parks within driving distance of my home on weekends. Who would have thought I’d find it so enjoyable and refreshing. I have since taken to several multi day camping retreats involving hiking to remote areas.

If you have ever been camping in the back country you will have no doubt gained a greater appreciation about your life.

Here is what I have come to learn about my time in the woods and my brief stints being disconnected from the world.

1. Lighten the baggage you’re carrying.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” - Matthew 11: 28-30

I discovered quite early on that the lighter the pack you carry on your back the greater your chances of enjoying the hike. So I became conscious of the weight of my pack, especially on multi day camping trips where the loads are usually heavier with tents and other gear. I became a stickler to the weight of items that were going into my pack and whether they were essential or just nice to have.

If something wasn’t essential I’d leave it behind, wherever possible I would find items that could be used for multiple purposes. If by the time the bag was packed it still seemed heavy then I’d start taking stuff out starting with the least critical item, usually being food (You can survive for days without food). On two day hikes I wouldn’t contemplate bringing a change of clothes since this will fill up space and add weight to the bag.

If this sounds a bit too extreme then consider that whatever you have in your pack you will be hauling it on your back for the duration of the hike, sometimes this could be several hours in duration along back country trails. It’s not the Hilton where someone carries your bag to your room.

With this realization I thought why not translate this to my everyday life. I started to question all the junk and stuff I’ve accumulated in life and still holding onto sometimes for silly sentimental reasons. All the clothes that I hadn’t worn for at least a year I gave away to charity, it’s surprising how easy it was to start filling up bags of clothes.

I had also kept a lot of my books from primary and high school, which I had brought with me from my old house. I hadn’t looked at them since forever and some of which were water damaged. So I threw them all out along with any other sentimental stuff that have been accumulated in my life that have just been sitting around in boxes anyway. I continued the momentum with clearing away clutter and stuff going from room to room. It’s surprising how liberating it is when you clear your life of unnecessary clutter.

2. Appreciation of the simple things.
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” -Confucius

Its amazing how spending time in the wilderness opens a world of discovery and joy. With the bustling of the city long behind you, the tranquility of nature takes you into a much more peaceful world. Walking on some remote trails you can take in breath taking views, be in awe of nature’s perfection and yet you can walk for hours without ever coming across another human.

Time becomes relative, there is a morning, afternoon and then there is evening. Time really loses its importance and you get a sense sometimes that time just stops. It’s one of those last pristine environments where man made intervention hasn’t been able to ruin it.

I came to realize that being in nature you quickly get a sense of how the simple things can really bring you great joy and happiness. Watching the sunrise over the mountain tops to beckon the beginning of another beautiful day, listening to the animals and birds waking up to the sun’s clock or listening to the rain hitting the top of your tent. The simple things make all the difference. Even starting a fire brings with it an uncanny sense of joy, your dependent on the fire to cook your meals and keep you warm during the night.

It’s surprising how hours can go by just doing nothing but staring at the roar of the fire and the embers flying off in different directions. Even food takes on a whole new dimension. After having to carry all that weight to the camp site, you enjoy every morsel of food you can put into your mouth. The simple can of beans or spaghetti which would otherwise be taken for granted back home is cherished in the wilderness.

You learn to ration your food as there is no supermarket to drive to when supplies get low. Feeling a little hungry sometimes just goes with the territory and you have a new found appreciation for those who go hungry each night all around the world.

I learn to accept that things can go wrong because they always inevitably do and just go with the flow. I learn to have gratitude for everything I have because I’m well aware even in this simple state of being that many others in this world live daily in worst conditions. I learn to have gratitude for the moments that take my breathe away on these trips because I know I will be back to the real world soon.

3. The journey isn’t half the fun, it is the fun.
“It’s been a lovely ride - I just wish I’d been there to enjoy it.” - Sylvester Stallone

It’s the journey not the destination that you will find the enjoyment. Hiking is one of those journey’s that doesn’t lend itself well to the way we live life. Rushing and pushing yourself to get there quicker only leads to exhaustion, injuries and potential accidents that can really get you in trouble when help could be hours or days away from reaching you. Instead you learn to just take it at a comfortable pace and take in the scenery while you’re at it.

It’s funny how we can so easily forget that in our day to day life, we feel that everything is a priority so we rush from meeting to meeting and push ourselves to complete more things on the to do list only to repeat it all again the next day. We don’t take the time out to just enjoy the ride of life. We feel that if we go at a comfortable pace that someone else will get what we want, do what we want or enjoy what we want. The irony of it is that we never really know who that somebody is so we just mindlessly just keep doing what we’ve always been doing not ever taking a second thought.

While hiking you also quickly learn to listen to what your body is telling you. The idea is prevention. You want to be drinking enough fluids so dehydration doesn’t take hold, you want to eat to keep up the energy and when your feet start to have hot spots you learn to take a rest. Pushing through the pain is a recipe for disaster as a blister can really put a stop to your day.

Once you decide to enjoy the journey then hiking just becomes hiking. You’re not preoccupied about meeting arbitrarily assigned goals, your not worrying about the million of tasks that you need to do, it just becomes walking. After a while you stop starring at the ground all the time to avoid tripping on something and start to take more time looking around and appreciating the scenery and wildlife. Maybe that’s a lesson on how we all should approach life.

In one of my previous posts entitled “The Secret To Happiness” written by Paulo Coelho it talks about this very thing about learning to see the beauty and magnificence of our journey while taking care of our responsibilities and commitments as represented by the drop of oil on the spoon.

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Posted in Life Balance, Living The Simple Life