To choose life – 7 steps
This guest post is from Fredrik Öhrn, a writer, based in Bangkok, Thailand, who blogs in English at www.careofasia.com and in Swedish at http://www.ifred.se.
I signed up for an Adventure race a while back. Adventure racing in Thailand means, Jungle- running, Mountainbiking, Kayaking, swimming and a few other surprise obstacles along the way. The duration of the race is usually somewhere around 6 hours.
So I had signed up, I ha a partner (you do adventure racing, usually in teams of two or more) and the date of the race was drawing closer. One week before, I got a cold. I was not feeling up for this race at all. Three days to go, and the cold was worse than ever.
Then I let go, I saw myself off the cold, running through the Jungle with a perfect stride, jumping on my bike just to see myself flying down (and up) the hills surrounding The River Kwai. The only thing I did not see myself doing was kayaking – but that is another story. Of course I was not going to have a cold at the time of the race.
The Race
Raceday came, it had been raining heavily the day before and we were all kind of excited to get muddy, working ourself through the jungle and The River.
The race started at 8.40 – we all took off on our bikes, after about 20 minutes we reached the first transition area and we switched to running.
No trails, just trees, leaves and grass. And hills. It started going uphill shortly after the start, up, up and up. Exhusting most of the time and at times it was tricky to get by the rolling rocks without causing an avalanche. We had to run with our helmets on for protection – but there is really only so much a bicycle helmet can do against falling rocks after all.
We reached a part where it flattened out a bit and we got on a nice trail, I was feeling strong and took a moment to look around – WOW! Fantastic! It was almost like running indoors, in a corridor. Bamboo trees covering both the sides of the trail and we were almost totally covered by the same trees from above, it was magic.
We were jogging, not very fast, I got goosebumps all over my body – there I was running in the jungle, beautiful landscape surrounding me, I felt good, this is life – I am truly alive!
We finished the run, got back on our bikes and rode them to the river.
The River Kwai
Everyone knows about this river, everyone has seen the movie, heard about the bridge and we all know the name of this river. The River – The River Kwai.
We stopped for some drinking water, got ourselves a kayak and jumped in. We were now paddling on the River Kwai.
My arms started aching after about 7 minutes in the kayak, the trip down the river became more of a pain that it should have been. It was quiet, we passed a couple of beautiful monestaries where the nuns were sitting on huge porches overlooking the river, probably wondering what we all were doing.
I could have told them: We were alive and kicking, having a blast, feeling the pain in our bodies and enjoying it, thanks to the endorphines, the river, the mountains and the great outdoors.
After kayaking and then swimming in the same river, we went on a long jungle run, running in rivers, climbing rope ladders and at times it felt like you were on a set of an old Vietnam-war movie, minus the guns.
We finished the race after 5 hours and 21 minutes in 6th place out of many teams. We were tired and we were hungry but very happy!
Sometimes you have to take the effort, to sign up, buy the ticket, get out of the couch, turn off your TV, go somewhere and see something different. It may be a struggle at first, you might be a little bit intimidated or even afraid, but do it anyway. It will put a big smile on your face and you will feel so much more alive afterwards that you would wonder why you even considered not doing it.
The 7 steps:
1. Pick a goal
2. Make necessary preparations
3. Take small steps towards your goal
4. As you approach it – make sure you are relaxed.
5. Have fun along the way, feel how you are alive.
6. Have fun reaching the goal
7. Enjoy finding a new goal and a new challenge.
This is true for any goal as well as for life – it’s really 7 steps – where the goal is what you want to do with your life. Don’t feel stressed, feel relaxed and keep taking small steps towards your goal.
Fredrik Öhrn
