Ask Why

Ask why

A hazy dimness had hung in the air all week. The northern sky darkened. I woke to grey ash falling soft as snow on my tent. Later that day, I smelled smoke. And then, finally, the route ahead was blocked by flames. This was a forest fire, Canadian style: it was enormous.

The only road through the Yukon was now cut off and would remain so for several weeks, at least. Winter was approaching. I needed to cycle north to Alaska before the season changed. Hundreds of miles of blazing fir and spruce blocked my way. 

It was an exasperating situation. For three years, I had been obsessed with pedalling around the world. Literally every day had been building towards that goal. Yet suddenly the way ahead was impassable. And there was nothing I could do about it. 

Was this where it all fell apart? Was this the end after so much stubborn focus and purpose? Would I have to resort to taking an aeroplane? I thought of the word with disgust. You can’t really call it cycling around the world if you travel by plane, can you? Whatever happened next, the tyre tracks that stretched behind me for thousands of miles were about to be broken by the consequences of this vast forest fire. 

I filled page after page of my diary with ideas (and plenty of self-pity). What this angst-filled, caffeine-fuelled brain dump eventually revealed astonished me.

Why was I so obsessed with crossing the swathe of burning forest ahead of me? The unbroken nature of my ride had crumbled long ago. An enforced armed police convoy in Egypt; some blatant cheating to get to a TV in time to watch a football match in Tanzania; another escort through a long tunnel high in the Andes. So I could not claim that the ride’s purity was why I felt compelled to keep pedalling. I poured more coffee and kept writing.

My scribblings eventually teased out an epiphany from the depths of my Neanderthal brain. I was out here in the Yukon – thousands of miles from home, pretty much broke, years without seeing my family – in pursuit of something hard and meaningful (if only to me). That was what felt important. That was why I was doing this. I was not cycling around the world in order to cycle around the world. I was cycling around the world to live adventurously. I had not appreciated the subtle difference until now.

This clarification made my situation much clearer and opened up possibilities. The question I needed to ask was no longer, ‘how can I keep cycling around the world?’ The vital question was, ‘How can I keep living adventurously?’

 

Snaking through the burning wilderness was the Yukon River. Perhaps that could offer my solution? Maybe, I mused, I could travel by river rather than road?

Before bulldozers and tarmac ever reached this part of the world, the rivers had been the road. For hundreds of years, local people had paddled the rivers in summer or walked them as frozen highways in winter. An idea began to take shape. It was time to borrow a canoe. 

I was in the Yukon with a friend. David and I laughed and wobbled as the current took hold of our new transport and whisked us away downstream. Paddling was far more fun than pedalling. Our canoe sat low in the water, piled high with two bicycles and supplies for 10 days. The locals waved goodbye, nervously. They were worried that we were inexperienced at canoeing, that we knew nothing about bears and that we were heading into a wilderness that was on fire. All these things were true.

But the best way to learn is to do. 

David and I dipped our paddles into the cold, clear water and began 500 miles of learning how to canoe.

When I think back now to the four years I spent cycling around the world, I do not regret those 500 missing miles in the saddle. Instead, I remember our time on the river as a magnificent addition to the overall experience. David and I still talk about it fondly whenever we meet up to drink beer or plant trees. And we always daydream of continuing down the river to the sea one day.

Our Yukon adventure taught me three useful lessons. (Four if you include the discovery that spicy sausage doesn’t work as bait for catching salmon.)

It is important to pause from time to time and think about why you are actually doing something. The answer might surprise you. It might also be different from your motivations when you first hatched your plan. These core values should influence every subsequent decision you make.

I learned to concentrate on what I could control rather than on all that I could not. There was little point getting angry at millions of acres of blazing forest and a squillion mosquitoes. All I was able to do was deal with the situation in front of me and keep moving forwards. 

Accepting (and ideally embracing) uncertainty is liberating. If you set out on a long journey, things will go wrong. If they do not – if everything goes perfectly to plan – that does not mean you are a genius. It means your goal was too modest. You will encounter forest fires and have to gamble on climbing into a wobbly canoe and seeing what happens. Mishaps turn a project into an adventure. In the long run, they often make the best memories and lessons. 

 

OVER TO YOU:
Think of something you have been doing for a long time. (It could relate to your job, outside work or with your family.) Ask yourself, ‘why do I do this thing?’ Has the answer changed over time? Is it still valid?

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