The next few posts will be by guest and friend, Dover Sicamous about his plans for the future:
Everyone has their bucket lists. Everyone says they are going to do them. Let's be honest, that works out about as often as a celebrity marriage. Well I am going to change that right here. Over winter break, I first outlined my plan for doing the things on my bucket list, and at the same time, for preserving time to enjoy my life. Here's the plan:
Every six months, I will accomplish something on my list. No exceptions.
Every summer, I will take two weeks to go on a trip, nice itinerary or simply driving somewhere I have never been, relaxing or hectic, touristy or running away to explore something new.
That's basically it. Deceptively simple, but as anyone would know, hard to stick to.
The six month plan came to be under the influence of several factors. I have been slowly making and accumulating my bucket list, realizing as a kid I didn't have the ability to do most of them yet. So I chalked them all up to when I was in college, and would have the freedom necessary to do them. However when I got to college, the next thing I knew it was January and I had done nothing. It's extremely easy to just fall in the groove of classes during the week, parties, sports, and random other meetings during the weekend. And then you go home for the summer, get a job and then you're stuck there until you go back and repeat the process.
It only gets worse after college. You don't even have the potential of summers to do anything, because there is no summer. You work year round year after year, and so there is no 'down' month to make you take initiative and go somewhere. So you end up working for a while, until you get used to it, or until you get settled, until years have gone by.
You know the feeling. When you're a kid, summers last forever, and you have tons of memories. Get to highschool and get a part time job, and they seem much shorter, and it feels like you didn't do as much. College is even more hectic, a job, sometimes summer classes. They start to roll together a bit. Once you're in the workforce, years go by without remembering anything. Summer vacations serve as a break, a reset button. You get to break your life up into semesters, and so associate different memories with freshman, sophmore, or junior year. Out in the workforce, there is nothing to break it up. No time to say, the start of the new year, what is this one going to be known for? And so it all meshes into one big mess that eats away the years.
That is the primary motivation to make the plan as I did. For two weeks around the same time each year, take the time off and do something and go somewhere I will really enjoy. Keep dividing my life up, and accomplishing my other life goals, so I don't look back and say, what the hell have I been doing the last twenty years? Instead I'll remember the year I hiked the Appalachian Trail, the year I went to Alaska, the year I ran in Bryce Canyon, the first year I bought a kayak and paddled hundreds of miles down a river, the time I tried surfing. By the end of it all, I'll truly be a wisened, content old man.
I've talked to several like minded individuals who gave input on their ideas, who helped give confidence to this idea. I've talked to people who have already given up, "It's not like we would ever have ended up doing any of that stuff" scalding the air as it comes out of their mouth.
I'm determined to hold true to this ideal. I started by accomplishing one thing before the winter ended; the river dive in snow water. I am on the eve of starting the crucial, pop the cherry virgin trip for myself: the Appalachian Trail. Tomorrow, I am being dropped off at the Vermont-New Hampshire border, to hike for two weeks and get as far as I can. Tentatively, I am looking at about 230 miles to take me through Vermont and deep into Massachusetts. My parents dislike it, my friends dislike, coworkers dislike it, because I will be on my own for two weeks in the woods, presumably being raped by bears every two hours. But I have to do it this way, and I love them all and am extremely grateful that they support me in the end.
This will be my primary mode of communication the next weeks. This is where I'll write about how things are going, and all that fun stuff. All of my friends, family etc, refrain from texts everyday of "OMG you're hiking for two weeks? Thats crazy omggkfgfihj" and "Hey I know I just texted you an hour ago about how you were but now I have an awesome story I would like to talk about for hours." My phone will barely be on during these trips. When I do turn it on, I want to save battery, maybe just make a quick call. Having it buzz and vibrating for ten minutes from all the messages will with my luck, be some kind of giant death spider mating call. I am not Frodo, so I don't plan on carrying a sword with me. Nor will I have magic armour to reveal that I am fine even after having a ten minute death monologue on the floor. I will instead simply be dragged away by Shelob, and probably not to work as her housekeeper.Because I'm not Barbara Ehrenreich either.
But I do love comments, so go crazy with those if you want!
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