An Exploration of Reevaluating What Matters.

My friend and brilliant writer Eric Adsit maintains a blog called "The Beaverator Kid" and the online Zine/life-publication "A Dirtbag's Guide To Whitewater." In the latest issue of "Dirtbag" he writes on "reevaluating what matters" in the world of kayaking. He does a smashing job of pinning down the essence of what kayaking should be/really is all about, where it is now (not exactly where it should be) and how we can get back to the roots of our (niche) sport. Introspection, analysis, and constant evaluation and reevaluation are his prescriptions (extrapolated a bit by me). I believe we need to practice the aforementioned actions not only to stay true to the nature of our sports or activities in life, but to remind ourselves of the meaning we put into our lives in general. No matter what our activities are, kayaking, religious practice, martial arts, fine arts, other sports, etc. we need to be reminded of why we started doing what we do, why we love doing it, and how we shall continue to do what we love and pass it on to others in the future with the right sentiment.
My time in India has been huge for this. Not necessarily for the reevaluation of activities/hobbies of mine, but a reevaluation of life in general. India has been/has given me a huge lens pointing inwards to my core. My experience here has been quite conducive to introspection, (personal and extra-personal) analysis, evaluation and reevaluation. I've learned lessons on life and (re-)affirmed how I want to live. I can't wait to return home to apply these lessons to everyday life. I was super happy with my life back home in the states. No doubt about that at all. I was happy with my school, my friends, my family, my philosophies, my world view, my outlook on life, my activities, my job, everything. So why drop it all and go to India?? Well, maybe I forgot WHY I was happy. Perhaps I had become distanced from the root essence of my happiness and drive in life. I needed some contrast, something to put my life back home in perspective. It was time for a reminder, a reevaluation of what matters.
For me, solo traveling is conducive to introspection. And being here (in India, such a different part of the world/way of life from the west) has allowed me to look deeper into myself and the nature of my happiness (back home in the west) than almost ever before. What I want from/how I want to live life seems clearer to me now than ever before. What was the root of my happiness? Is it enough to be happy without knowing WHY you're happy? Or, is it enough to be happy without knowing where that happiness really comes from? I wasn't happy only because of the activities I did or who I was doing them with (although that is a HUGE part of it). For example, kayaking isn't a happiness pill for everyone. That is, it isn't guaranteed to make everyone happy. It isn't about what you do, but WHY you do it. My activities, like kayaking, still make me very happy by just doing them, but why? I'm happy because of the reasons behind why I do things. Doing activities I do still makes me happy, almost automatically. Every time I sit in my kayak, strap into my snowboard, or fire up my motorcycle I'm transported into a state of bliss just by doing that action. I'm not necessarily constantly evaluating why it is that that action makes me happy. The sound of my motorcycle still makes me happy even if I don't evaluate the reasons behind why it does so. But sometimes, we need reminders because our activities become routines. Our privileges become day-to-day activities. In daily life in the west we are immensely privileged to be able to do what we love almost whenever we want. So we get into the routine of just doing what we love all the time because we can. After a while we just do them because we do them because we can do them. Compare slashing carves (snowboarding) on the first day of the season to the last day. Different, no? Why? On the first day of the season are we somehow closer to the essence of why we love snowboarding than on the last day? We get tired, and distanced from that essence as snowboarding becomes routine. Same with life. Life gets routine. Not that it falls into an unhappy routine or miserable, melancholic state of being. We're not talking full on existential crisis. Although that could happen without periodic revaluation out of the context of your routine. The routine is still very much pleasurable, but we get away from the essence of the pleasure, of the happiness. I'm not saying one needs to live a purely spontaneous, adventurous, unorthodox, etc. life; it's just important to have a break from routine once in a while to remind us of why we're happy to live in the routine we do.
You see this on different scales.
I say, "I snowboard because I love it." But after doing it every day for an entire winter do I get even the slightest bit jaded? Yes. Why did I really start snowboarding? What drew me into that sport. Was it about getting a mid-jump glamour-mug-shot up on facebook or youtube? Or was it about the nurturing look-out-for-everyone attitude of the shredding community? Or how about being in nature? I don't snowboard because "It's just what I do." I wish to look upon my snowboarding (as a metaphor for life and everything in it) with the eyes of a beginner. Of a newbie to the sport, or someone shredding for the first time in months. Thinking, "I shred because of all these deep reasons that tickle me to the core of my being." We know there's a deeper reason to why we do things in there somewhere, we've just done what we do for so long that we somehow get away from the essence of that initial reason. The true essence of WHY we do what we do. I think we need periodic breaks from doing what we do to help us stay true to the reasons why we do them. Snowboarding has it's seasonal break. As does kayaking, etc. But life in the west! Life goes on, non-stop, 24/7/365. So, a trip to the other side of the world has proved a good way to help me stay true to the essence of my life back home. You see, different scales.
I don't need to seek anymore, at least, for now.
It's hard to search for the essence of happiness in the very context in which you wish to find it. Like snowboarding, I crave it more and know why I love it more in the off-season. The summer is an essential reminder to why I shred. Being removed from what you love helps you understand why exactly you love it. Like evaluating why you love snowboarding in the context of summer. It might be hard, after snowboarding all season, to evaluate why you love snowboarding in the context of snowboarding everyday and having done so for months. And like coming to India. Like life back home and trips abroad. Coming to India, as I know understand, wasn't about coming to India. I.e. I didn't just come to learn about this specific nation/place/part of the world. My trip has been about taking a break from life back home and being able to reevaluate what matters in the context of home from the new perspective of this very different context.
I can dwell.
I'll return home, to school, to my activities, with a new vigor and "lease on life" and the ability to see to the core of my happiness, to really understand why I'm happy and why doing what I do makes me happy. I feel like I'll really be able to "be on my grind," "go hard" with confidence and invest in life 110%. By doing this, I'll be happier, more appreciative of everything, and more satisfied with my life in general than ever before.