Date: 2003-10-13
To: Jerry's Final Thought
Miles today: 0.0

¢The Secret to Quiet Happiness is in Limiting your Aspirations¢ ¢ Nigel from ¢Half Man Half Biscuit¢Well I¢m afraid that I¢ve finally had to admit defeat. I had hoped that with time, hindsight and a wordprocessor I would be able to adequately sum up my time on the trail. However, despite numerous attempts it appears that I¢m just not up to the job and find myself unable to come up with anything that would enlighten more than it might mislead.What I will say, though, is that things, by and large, went pretty well and that I am fortunate in having no regrets about either deciding to go ahead with the hike or with the way things turned out. That¢s not to say it was a bed of roses of course as lots of what goes on out there couldn¢t exactly be described as the stuff of dreams (try any of wet, cold, smelly, sore or hungry as obvious examples) and, in fact, trying to come up with examples of the ¢good¢ that not only compensated for but exceeded these ¢hardships¢ isn¢t all that easy ¢ or at least it isn¢t easy to do in a way that someone who hasn¢t experienced something similar might accept. Things like the simple pleasure of sitting on your pack, breathing deeply and staring off into space thinking about nothing at all; or the refreshing crisp clean taste of ice cold spring water; or the ease with which sleep comes each night; or the way you tend to see the good in people rather than fearing the worst.That is where things appear to make no sense to me written down in black and white, it all seem so contradictory. How can what looks like a positive avalanche of ¢bad¢ be offset by what, at best, looks like small crumbs of comfort, mere consolations, and emerge as such an overwhelmingly positive experience?The answer is I don¢t have a clue. All I can say for sure is that it did.Last year when I followed some other journals, I think it was ¢Greenbean¢ who said that she wouldn¢t give up unless she had 5 bad days in a row. Well I can honestly say that I didn¢t have 1 bad day ¢ 2 memorably awful half days, but there wasn¢t a single day that I didn¢t turn in with a smile on my face, able to chuckle at myself or about my predicament and that sounds pretty priceless to me, even if I cannot explain why.If I had to try and explain it in terms of the big picture then I would suggest that it might be, in large part, due to a couple of things:1) The recognition of (and sense of satisfaction in) making steady progress towards a clear, if limited, aspiration ¢ passing intermediate goals and overcoming the latest problems along the way; and2) The virtual absence of those numerous, often soul destroying, often self imposed, irritations that affect so much of ¢normal¢ everyday life.In summing up I think this leaves me back with Nigel from ¢Half Man Half Biscuit¢ except that I might substitute ¢contentedness¢ for ¢happiness¢ and with a recognition that its not always the big things that make the most difference.So for me maybe its more a case of ¢The Secret to Quiet Contentedness being in Limiting my Aspirations¢Thanks to everybody that helped me along the way, special thanks to my sister for posting all these journals, thanks to everybody who has shown an interest by reading some of these journals and last but not least thanks to the people of Poland for ¢Milky Way Chocolate Spread¢, I¢m not saying that I couldn¢t have done it without them but it definitely wouldn¢t have been so much fun.Bye.