A North American Journey

Life 2.0: "Jobs fill your pockets, adventures fill your soul."

We are back in Toronto and the Canadian Traverse is complete. The distance we travelled by car is further than the flight from Johannesburg to Montreal and the hikes would have almost taken us from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein.

The corporate world created a myth that the only success in life is success at work. If you want to be happy, you only had to have a well-paying job so that you could buy things, send your children to private schools, and have a pension plan. Jobs fill our pockets as per the Jaime Lyn Beatty quote.

This is important but some of us will agree that a successful life isn’t just about these things.

I am still amazed at how deep this indoctrination was engraved into my subconscious thinking. We humans need something more to be happy. We need to fulfil our desires to explore, to experience and most importantly to grow. It always fascinated me how crystal clear my thinking was at the office, post an adventure. Only to be clouded by the corporate noise after a week or two.

Making the decision to seek adventure and feed your soul is not always easy. From pushing your body to extremes, to traveling somewhere new, adventure can and does take many forms.

Anthony Bourdain who travelled more than most understands this quest:

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”Read more