Six years ago, without even knowing it, I was completely lost. My career was going OK, but I had stopped dreaming and I had little to no ambition. I seemed to live only for weekends with the boys and a few holidays dotted throughout the year. Looking back I can see that I had everything the wrong way round.
Then a girl walked into my life and changed everything. Beth was to become my saviour, my purpose and my direction. It sounds dramatic but it is true. She reignited my passion for life. Little did I know it right then, but life was about to get a whole lot more interesting!
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
I have written on this blog before about our sabbatical in Japan last year. The decision to go was certainly one, which became the catalyst for huge change and even greater self-discovery.
We primarily found ourselves in Japan because Beth loves the place, the culture, the language and the people. And she is the most important thing in my life so not to share this passion would have been like not acknowledging a part of her.
My initial motivation for going had been to share in this love, to experience all the things she held close to her heart and hopefully, somewhere along the line, pick up a bit of the lingo. I needed to communicate with her friends better than just politely smiling and nodding my head. And to be honest, I couldn’t wait for six months off work.
But in the end it became something much more significant than that. The extended time away from home and work also became an opportunity to ask myself a lot of questions that I had never dared ask before.
I remember sitting on the banks of the Kamogawa River and taking my notebook out of my very masculine bicycle basket. I opened it up and then just sat there, pencil primed for what seemed like an eternity until I started to write. I think the pause was more to do with being flooded with ideas. It took a while to filter through the waterfall of cascading thoughts and focus on the moment. What was on my mind now? This is what I wrote:
Who am I, Where am I
- 35 years old
- OK job
- Great girlfriend (I hadn’t proposed at that point!)
- Own a bit of property (as well as you can own something with a considerable mortgage attached)
- A beautiful home
- Happy? Content?
When I was 12, is this how I imagined it would be at 35?
No, not unless astronauts trained in Kyoto!
I then started to write down as many honest thoughts regarding myself as I could bear to admit:
- Years of cruising around in second gear. Always just doing enough (whatever that now meant)
- Feeding my social laddish side
- But what about me, what about the boy before the alcohol and girls? What was I doing back then? I remember being interested. I remember asking question after question.
- Have I changed so much? More importantly do I care?
“Sometimes the best way to figure out who you are is to get to that place where you don’t have to be anything else.” – Unknown
Without doubt I am blessed with great family and friends. But there is more to it than that. I needed to answer the questions…
- Who am I?
- Where am I?
These are deceptively simple questions and I was really struggling to answer them.
My thoughts went automatically to sport and more specifically football (soccer), but what about ME? How was I going to make myself feel proud?
I decided to look back to my earlier childhood before sport became all encompassing. This took many chats, coffees, beers, runs, bike rides and lots of listening to music. It is amazing what can provoke memories and what you actually forgot you used to do. Isn’t it strange that to move forwards more often than not you have to look backwards?
“You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.” – Jerry Gillies
I decided to start by getting myself really fit and healthy. This was an aspect of my life that has always been a form of salvation for me. But ever since I turned 30 I had been in denial. My body doesn’t respond and recover as fast as it did in my 20s and I soon realized I needed to sacrifice a little bit more than I used to in this quest. I definitely struggle to enjoy everything around me if I do not feel good in myself. This was actually my first recognition of who I am as an individual. And getting fit again was an important first step on the road to doing what I love.
How about you? Who are you? Where you thought you would be? Have you thought about this lately? It would be great to hear about your journey too.
Until next time…
Mr K
