Slow down and Be Happy!

Rev Kane and a hiking friend

Don’t exist.
Live.
Get out, explore.
Thrive.
Challenge authority. Challenge yourself.
Evolve.
Change forever.
Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don’t stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn’t know your name doesn’t mean you don’t matter. ~ Brian Krans

Originally posted February, 2015

My life at the moment is moving at break neck speed, selling a house, packing up my house, moving my things into storage, quitting my job, changing my address, making travel plans, training for the Appalachian Trail, all of that on top you know working and all the normal life stuff. In the midst of all of this I was thinking about my trip east. I’ll be driving east and then north basically camping my way across the US, getting in some hiking and camping time in preparation for my Appalachian Trail thru-hike. While thinking about this trip I had the weirdest thought for a moment, what would I do during my downtime? For a moment this thought terrified me, then I began laughing. Why was I laughing?
Well, having nothing to do, actually having downtime is sort of the point of all of this. What will I do, I’ll be hiking, taking photos and writing. I quickly thought back to my time in Utah 5 years ago training for my Himalayan Trek. Each day I would get up, eat, hike, eat, rest, do some reading, eat, photograph the sunset and then write for several hours before bed. It was heavenly and what I wrote in my journal at one point was, “this is what life is supposed to be for me.”

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny. ~ Paulo Coelho
That idyllic existence is what I’m returning to, but change scares all of us, even me, a guy who actually does trainings on change management. But change can be a very good thing, I’m expecting the change I’m about to face will be. I’m going to once again challenge myself, physically and mentally to do the Appalachian Trail thru-hike. But also I’ll be challenging myself to write a travel book and do some other writing as well, even more than that I’ll be pushing to get my work published, something I’ve been too intimidated to try before.

So hopefully after this year or so is up, I will have done some significant writing and maybe even gotten a few things published. My hope is to bring you all along for the ride so we can all have some happy days my friends ~ Rev Kane