Category: Taking a risk (Page 3 of 4)

How to survive.

10/19/2015 / Laura

I love to hike and be in the outdoors. I recognize the inherent dangers of the wilderness and always try to plan ahead and respect Nature. Like many boomers and beyond, I’ve learned firsthand how foolish it is to take unnecessary risks or be unprepared.

However, so many people have not; they don’t stop to consider they are not ready for higher altitudes, fast weather changes, and all the challenges that come with backcountry exploration, climbing, or any other potential perilous activity. And then there are those of us who think we are doing everything right and take every precaution, but still get lost, fall off a cliff, lose our footing, or find ourselves treading water.

It’s fascinating to me why some survive harrowing tales of wandering for days in the desert, or getting lost on a mountain trail, or floating on a raft at sea—while others don’t make it.

It could be a vacation mishap. Or a car that goes off the road and is upside down in a ditch for a week. Or being captured in a combat zone and held prisoner.

Why does one person panic when the boat springs a leak, while another calmly considers a solution?

Why does one person live to tell the tale, while another does not?

Obviously you could ask this question about almost any scary situation in life: getting fired, being served divorce papers, coming home to a burgled house, hearing very bad news from the doctor.

In his terrific book, “Deep Survival”, author Laurence Gonzales takes us on an absorbing journey into why some people endure disasters while others do not.

The premise is that there is an art and science to staying alive.

Gonzales talks about the idea of getting lost. “In daily life, people operate on the necessary illusion that they know where they are. Most of the time, they don’t. The only time most people are not lost to some degree is when they are at home. It’s quite possible to know the route from one place to another without knowing precisely where you are.”

Interesting. We head out on adventures and because we have a map in our pocket, we’re sure we know where we are. But quite often, we just have an idea of where we are going.

Should we veer of the path and then get turned out, we are very much lost.

Again, Gonzales applies the stages of getting lost to areas other than a dayhike in the woods. He cites examples of corporations who have veered off their right path and tried something that almost took them to the edge of disaster.

Bad decisions can leave us in the woods. But it’s what we do once we’re there that counts.

As Gonzales found in his research, there are people who, stranded with absolutely nothing, find a way to make it alive…while others have everything they need for survival, but they perish.

Some people just give up.

Survivors do not.

I really enjoyed this book because I have a deep interest in what it takes to be safe and oriented in the great outdoors. But I honestly think the principles can help us in so many other situations.

Gonzales lists 12 points for staying out of trouble, saying “here is what survivors do”:

Perceive and believe. Recognize and accept the reality of your situation. You have broken your leg. You are in trouble. It’s okay to go through denial, anger, depression, or more, but now it’s time to “go inside” and accept what is happening.

Stay calm. Whether it’s fear or humor, use it to stay calm. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you

Think, analyze, plan. Get organized. If you’re in a group, establish a leader. Come up with steps.

Take decisive action. Be bold while also cautious. Decide on yours tasks and do them well. Handle what you can right now, and leave the rest.

Take joy in your successes. You’re very stressed. You are trying to hold your fear at bay. But you just made a fire. Celebrate it! It helps you stay motivated.

Sing a song. Recite a poem. Do calculus. Keep your mild stimulated and calm. Have a very long way to walk alone? Count each step, and dedicate it to someone you know.

Count your blessings. Be glad you are alive! Think about the people you care about and be successful for them.

Enjoy the beauty around you. Be where you are and take it all in.

Believe you will succeed. Be careful. Make no more mistakes. And believe you will prevail

Let go of your fears. You might think you’re going to die. Try to surrender to it, and thus get around it. Get off that mountain anyway.

Have the will and the skill. You know your skills. Now believe anything is doable. Be coldly rational. Do what is necessary.

Don’t give up. Survivors are not easily frustrated. They know there will be setbacks. They learn from them and keep going.

Whether you just ran out of water in the desert.

Or your retirement savings have vanished.

Keep your head. Trust your instincts. Believe in yourself.

Be a survivor.

“Knowledge is the key to survival, the real beauty of that is that it doesn’t’ weigh anything.”

Ray Mears

Losing our fear of the dark.

08/24/2015 / Laura

Why are we still afraid of the dark?

Not the dark closet in our bedrooms where the monsters of childhood hide. Not the darkness outside when you think you just heard footsteps by the gate and you can’t see your hand in front of your face.

I’m talking about the dark or “shadow” places of our souls…where our doubts and worries and resentments and unfilled dreams live.

Surely all that is part of us is good, or at least worthy of inspection. We know we can’t be Happy Howard or Smiling Susie all the time. And as boomers and beyond, we are plenty aware that while we would like to think we’ve worked on all our “issues”, there’s still a whole file cabinet filled with squirming toads in the back of our minds.

So why are we so scared to admit it even exists?

Are the shadow parts of ourselves something we should fear and avoid, or embrace as an invitation to live a full life? To be fully human, and know that light always follows darkness?

Writer, professor and Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor explores this quandary in “Learning to Walk in the Dark.” She says:

“If you are my age, you are losing a lot more things than you once did—not just your keys and your vision, but also your landmarks, but also your sense of sense. You are going to a lot more funerals than before. When you read your class notes in the alumni news, they are shorter and near the top all the time. You know full well where this is heading, but you also know you are not ready yet. So how are you supposed to get ready? …. It is time for a walk in the dark.”

“You have knocked on doors that have not been opened. You have asked for bread and been given a stone. The job that once defined you has lost its meaning; relationships that once sustained you have changed or come to their natural ends. It is time to reinvent everything…it may be time for a walk in the dark.”

Everyone’s “walk” will be unique to what they need to explore, resolve, or even admit to. Is it a passion you let go of?

A love that got away?

A resentment that past abuse or mistreatment robbed you of what you could have been?

The death of a beloved friend or relative?

Or fears about taking the next big step in a relationship or career, or a major change of life?

Taylor talks about how she really does enjoy being outside in the dark. I can relate. We forget how the night can welcome us. How uplifting it can be to study the stars, see a comet grace the sky, or hear an owl’s call under a full moon. As children we loved playing in the dark, that’s when games really took on magic. And when ice cream tasted better. It felt friendly and safe.

Even now, if you haven’t in a long time, try sitting outside in the dark some evening. Feel the breeze. Watch the clouds if there’s enough moonlight. Listen to what the night is saying. Maybe it’s all trying to tell us that we’ll always face times when walking through a dark forest is the only way to get to our destination.

And the only difference between the lovely woods and that dark forest is lack of light…not a new evil presence. So instead of immediately turning on the flashlight, what if we just trust our senses to get through the dark patch, knowing it might get easier each time we did?

In other words, if we let our eyes adjust to the dark…who knows what we might see?

“What makes night within us may leave stars.”

Victor Hugo

Leaving the nest—and taking wing.

06/22/2015 / Laura

There’s a hollow gourd hanging on my front porch with a hole in it, making it the perfect choice for a bird couple looking for a cozy, comfortable, fixer-upper and shield against wind and rain.

The first tenants were a precious pair of mountain chickadees who worked furiously to make it theirs…bringing small twigs and grasses and stray balls of animal hair into the hole. Then Nature intervened as it always does, and a feisty wren threw them out, bags and all. I couldn’t figure out why I kept seeing all the twigs all over the floor of my porch. Then I looked up and watched as the tiny wren pushed the furnishings through the hole and peeked out, daring anyone to intervene.

Wrens are cute. Their song is beautiful. But they are not to be messed with.

So in the weeks that followed, things progressed, and soon there was a lot of chirping going on. I occasionally would see Mama wren bring in bits of food to her brood. Very Disneyesque.

Then it got ugly again.

One day, two smaller wrens sat on the rain of my porch squawking endlessly….flapping their tiny wings in pure terror. Looking up, Mama wren was sticking her head out of the hole in the gourd with a fierce look that said, “No room here. Go out on your own. My job’s done.” Each offspring would attempt to fly back into the gourd only have to have Mom promptly shove them off.

Party’s over.

Time to the leave the nest.

Time to get on with your life.

It made me think of how each of us goes through this rite of passage, whether it’s physically leaving home, losing our parents, or just mentally separating and becoming an adult. Some of us spend time as caregivers and the roles get reversed…yet he is still our father, and she is still our mother.

And when they are both gone, it’s quite shocking how different it feels.

No matter what our age is. Suddenly, we’re grown up. As a friend put it, “Now there’s no one between me and the sun.”

Both of my parents are gone, and there are periods of time when I don’t think of them. But there are days when it feels like they are standing right next to me. So many times I’d like to show my Mother something. Or ask my Father for advice. It’s hard.

And I can only imagine how hard it was for them when I left home and became independent.

Cutting ties is what we do (at least most of us). It’s what all of Nature does. It’s not easy, and I don’t think it’s meant to be. Adulthood is hard and you might as well get that message early on.

We all know people who just expect things to go easily, and who seem shocked when they don’t. Then they get resentful. And often, they hold that resentment their entire life. (And everyone they come into contact with pays for it.) So the waiter gets stiffed. The cab driver gets disrespected. The homeless person on the corner gets a dirty look.

As boomers and beyond, we’ve seen so many changes in our lives. We watched Howdy Doody. We saw man go into space. We ate TV dinners. We probably played in the neighborhood after school and didn’t get chauffeured to soccer, recitals, or play dates. We got very excited when the ice cream man came around in the afternoons.

Things are different now. And while we can hold on to our memories, there are some things we might have to let go of. Because as cozy as it might be, we can’t stay in that gourd forever. If we do, we’ll miss out on so much.

I don’t think it’s too late to let your life take wing. In fact, I think now is the perfect time.

Where have you never been, that you yearn to go?

What adventure calls to you?

What have you always wanted to say to a lifelong friend?

As the late motivational speaker and author Leo Buscaglia always used to say, the time is now. Stop waiting for the right moment.

Why not today?

“Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.”

Leo Buscaglia

The Road More Traveled

04/20/2015 / Laura

“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the church of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.” John Steinbeck, opening of “Travels With Charley.”

One of my favorite books. I first read it many many years ago when I was a girl sitting outside on summer days thinking about all the places I had never seen, and how much fun it would be to just travel when I wanted without a care. I always had a kind of wanderlust, maybe because our family moved every few years, or maybe because my soul was just always looking over the horizon.

The need to keep moving, to explore the unknown—do we, as John stated so eloquently, ever really grow out of it?

Or do we just compromise, and tell that part of us to be quiet. That we have to grow up now and be “responsible.”

In “Travels With Charley”, Steinbeck does take off in an old camper he calls Rocinante with his beloved canine companion, Charley. Together the pair really does travel all over and meet all kinds of people. An excerpt:

“You going in that?”

“Sure.”

“Where?”

“All over.”

“And then I saw what I was to see so many times on the journey—a look of longing. “Lord! I wish I could go.”

“You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“I don’t care. I’d like to go anywhere.”

Are we all born with this traveling bug, but many of us lose it over time? I wonder. I never really did, though I didn’t always get to take off on grand adventures. When I finally realized it was time to start seeing the places I longed to see, I did it…and many times I just took of on my own. That really freaked out a lot of people. It still does.

Aren’t you scared? What if something happens? What if you get bored? What if you get lonely? Aren’t you terrified to go somewhere completely new?

Here’s my theory:

A few butterflies in the stomach when you do something new is good for you.
Things can “happen” at any time, no matter how many people are with you.
Traveling isn’t boring for me, unless I’m stuck in an airport terminal for hours and hours.
And loneliness? You’d be amazed how many great conversations and impromptu dinners you can have with people you just met…if you aren’t already with someone at the time.

Fear is a good thing sometimes…it warns us, keeps us alert, can save our lives if we listen. But letting fear tell you that you can’t do something can be very suffocating. Take John Steinbeck. He relates in Travels With Charley that after driving all over the United States, he actually got lost when he tried to get back home. But he found his way.

We boomers and beyond like to travel. We’ve learned to take a larger view of the world. We like new experiences. Maybe that just means driving to a state park you’ve never seen. Or going to an arts festival in a beautiful location. If you want to be alone on a trip, you can be. But if you don’t, you’ll find many opportunities to be around others.

Here’s some stats on how boomers are affecting the travel market from immersionactive.com:

36% of leisure travel is done by mature travelers
60% of American boomers have their passports
80% of boomers want to visit a place they’ve never been before
Baby boomers account for 4 of 5 dollars spent on luxury travel today
On average, older adults will take four trips per year

So hey, if you’ve always wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial, or tour the Baseball Hall of Fame, or dip your toes in the Nile, and you have the means to do it, step through your fear and give it a go. You never know where the road will lead you—and if you get lost, maybe that’s what it takes to find your way home again.