This morning I woke up walked to the lounge room, sat down and plonked my laptop on my lap (ok where else was I to plonk it?). I wanted to check out a few Facebook posts that I saw while scanning my phone while lying in bed, yep I know, probably a bad habit… but hey don’t you do it? One of these was a TEDx talk ‘Think Small’ by Alastair Humphreys that Scott Dinsmore (http://liveyourlegend.net/) posted. I took a look and thought yep I’ll watch that while I jump on my cross trainer for 15 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrgzvykPILc&feature=youtu.be
Wow, was I captivated and I loved, loved, loved it… did I tell you I loved it! The idea of small adventures sparked something in me and got my head twirling. My brain went into overdrive thinking. In my past I have often wanted to go on different adventures, however I did not follow through on these desires, not to say that I have not had adventures, I have, but there were many I missed out on because of fear or apathy.
I have been mulling over two ideas recently. I am an artistic person and I want to help other artist like me find ways to generate a living from their creativity (see previous post) other than the traditional methods. And I have an interest in travel, particularly in promoting Tasmania as a destination to visit. Over the past number of weeks I have been struggling between both of these ideas and confusion reigned of which direction to go with.
What happened this morning was a great personal revelation… I realised that I could do both! This had never occurred to me before, the excitement inside of me exploded. I began to pace around the house trying to do my stretches and think clearly about what I needed to do this morning to get into town to make it on time for an appointment I had. As my head swirled I could see that there are many parts of myself that I had tried to keep separate and the revelation that all these parts of me are all ME was amazing.
I drove into town and the rain was pouring down, I started to picture myself on some adventure in the cold wet rain and that feeling of fear started to set in. How quickly fear starts to seep in, bringing on self-doubt and anxiety. Then the words of Alastair from the video I had watched earlier came back to me “Failing (to complete the adventure) would not really matter… more importantly, I didn’t want to be old and look back on my life and regret that I had not even begun.” This is so true, how many adventures have I missed out of because of my fear of failing and finding all the excuses under the sun to not follow through with them.
Maybe the best way to help other artists think creatively about doing what they are passionate about and earning a living from it is to do it myself! To be an example of how it can be done. So I believe the journey of living my legend has begun. I know there are many steps from here to there but consistency is the key, doing something every day to work towards actively living my passion. Putting down the words in this post is one step in my journey of life.
