Bridge to Opportunity

Cheering, splashing, applause, your own pulse echoing loudly in your ear… what sound makes you think ‘achievement’? That moment when you know you’re attaining something great. Do you feel it in your head? Your gut? Throughout your limbs? Do you feel as though you can’t stop smiling and want the world to share your joy?! It’s exciting, isn’t it? That rush of accomplishment that you can’t exactly describe.

            But why does it need to end there? At the big moments? Maybe the hype won’t be as grand, the feeling as strong, but why not celebrate the little triumphs more? Afterall, these baby steps are what make our ultimate dreams realities.

Now, let me share with you a problem I have with two of my favorite things in the world: traveling and Burning Man. While engaging in both activities we find ourselves at our very best. Why? Well, I don’t think there is a single answer and it’s going to be different for everybody. However, I have some thoughts. While either finding yourself in a new place or attending Burning Man we get caught in a whirlwind of amazing people that have all come together. People see our inner beauty because they are open to change, mystery, adventure, and more. Not only do they see it, they react to it and comment on it. It builds our confidence and gives us the courage to want to do more. We start dreaming, creating our ideal future, imagining a better world that we have helped improve. Everything seems possible because we are engulfed in a community of love, altruism, and greatness.

            Some crossovers between traveling and the burn I have noticed is that we set ourselves up to cultivate amazing friendships, share our deepest desires and pains without hesitation, cease to fear showing our true potential, and we feed off this positivity and yearn to be better, do more, work harder, take more risks.

            We find ourselves in a hub of possibilities and let our ambitions take over. It’s fantastic! We take our next steps toward our goals. We have a list of things we want to try, improve upon, do more of, stop doing, it goes on! We can do it!

            And we can! But… we don’t always. Many times, we do not reach these goals. What happens then? We find ourselves upset, feeling as though we’re not doing enough, we start demeaning self-talk without even realizing it. Why?

            What comes next? We start thinking about how we need to travel again or that, “Things are just different in default world. I wish I could be at Burning Man all the time.” Nooooo! These things are merely tools, amazing tools might I add, to aid us in what we can do in our everyday lives. They are opportunities to let us see and share the very best versions of ourselves to those around us. Opportunities to be more open-minded, challenge ourselves, to be heard, and listen.

            There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, but I believe we can be ambitious to a fault if we let it consume ourselves to a point where it becomes self-depreciating and we can no longer live up to our own standards. Doesn’t that sound silly? The decision is ours, we have the choice to feel happy and good about ourselves. So why do we let in this negativity that makes us feel ashamed? We’re our own judges.

            At Burning Man this year I had a huge list of things I wanted to do: learn songs on the harmonica, learn multiple Latino dances, be able to surf confidently on my own, write significantly more blog posts than I have, keep in touch with more people, read more, the list goes on!

            I’m exhausted just reading that list right now. Ambitious. Again, nothing is wrong with that. However, there is also nothing wrong with not reaching your goals. That’s why they’re goals, we’re giving ourselves something to aim for. We’re taking strides to become better. The goals no longer serve us when we let them break us down. At this point they are no longer goals, they’re expectations that we become upset about not reaching.

            So what if we don’t go to that class every week like we said we would? So what if we never made it there once? Maybe we ended up catching up with a friend, lending a strange a smile who needed it, or maybe we just lounged all day. That’s OK. It’s OK as long as we don’t let these events become excuses or avenues of guilt. And who’s to say that these chats with friends or TV days were ‘failures’? Maybe we became closer to a friend or made someone’s day? In the end, are those really failures? Only if we let them be.

            Instead of counting the things we didn’t accomplish, why not triumph in the little victories? After all, we made goals, not deadlines. Even if we did the ‘thing’, whatever that may be, one time. We did it. We made the choice. We made the original choice to travel, created our own path to decide to become better by setting goals, we did it! We already made ourselves better. Celebrate that! Celebrate your desire, share your small wins with those you care about.

            I don’t believe we should use traveling and Burning Man as clutches for what we can be. We make those decisions. Again, they are tools to create positivity and spark ideas. It’s up to us to make everything happen. We need to be that bridge from the things we learned into our day to day activities and interactions. And if we don’t do everything we say? Well, it’s all right. We’re human, believe it or not. We’re not alone. We’re in this together.

            Now let’s share our small victories, smile wide, and spread that blissful feeling with those around us, especially those we care for. Let’s dare to fail and laugh about it later.

            My main purpose of this blog is to inspire people to travel and learn, but don’t let it become your defining factor. Let it become a factor in you that shapes who you are everyday and share that version of yourself with the world, no matter where you are in it and celebrate the little things.