Blog #605: The Day the Sky Didn’t Fall

“You gotta’ be kidding me!”
(That’s me politely quoting myself.)

The shock had just hit me:
“I lost my freakin’ map!”

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In navigating my way across nine countries by foot…

I carry a walking map.

I use a non-working phone ONLY as a camera, and I have no GPS device that guides me. Instead, I carry a printed-out, day-to-day route map that’s detailed with dots, lines, circles, names, addresses and a giant “X” that marks the treasure spot where I will find my night’s beer, shower and bed.

Why carry a paper map instead of using 2023’s technological conveniences?

I like the unknown adventure a map whispers.

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Here it was.

The LAST day.

I was heading to Dunbar, Scotland…

My final destination on the 135-mile route.

And on the second hour of the day’s eight-hour walk, it hit me:

“I don’t have THE map!”

I had been holding it.

And now…I wasn’t.

The door for “Panic” to rush in was opened.

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Losing a map on the trail for me is a BIG deal.

When I lose my paper “GPS” when walking fifteen miles through lands unknown…well…it causes me to temporarily stop breathing.

Think of this comparison for YOU:

Imagine the immediate feeling of losing your cell phone.

Maybe a little brain craziness…right?

THAT was me in Scotland.

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“Think! Think! Think!”

“When did I last have it?”

“Where did I last look at it?”

“Where did I take my last photo?”

When I walk, I’m a juggler with map, camera and umbrella simultaneously in hand. Where I took my last photo might be a clue to where I’d lost the map.

The last photo had been snapped 45 minutes previous.

Two miles back.

I had no choice.

Turn around.

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Hopefully…

The map would be laying on the ground on the trail. I had no worries about someone having picked it up. Nobody else was out there. Unless a breeze had taken it off the trail, the map should be where it had fallen.

My biggest worry was the morning drizzle.

Paper and rain are a bad combination.

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Some context for you about me…and “drama.”

I’m not what you’d call the “extra chill” guy.

If something pops up that knocks a day out-of-whack, I’m the “Fix it now!” guy.

With being THAT guy comes lots of extra…

Internal urgency.

And tension.

I’m not going to say I see the sky always falling…

BUT the clock is often ticking until it MIGHT.

As a lifetime entrepreneur…

That’s how I’ve learned to survive.

“Do it now!”

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But on one cloudy, drizzly day “On the Road to Dunbar”…

I was not going to let the sky fall.

Despite…

Being alone in a foreign country…

And having no route map to guide me…

I decided to become…

Chill.

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Walking the reverse steps I’d earlier walked…

Two miles back…

Ten yards off the side of the road…

Blown next to an old wooden fence…

Slightly wet, but definitely readable…

I found it.

And I made it to the Dolphin Inn that night.

I finished walking the John Muir Way adventure with a little more adventure.

I wouldn’t have wanted my walk to end any other way.

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Brain craziness.

Panic.

Worry.

Stress.

Tension.

Anxiety.

Frustration.

Anger.

We decide how much all of it plays out in the course of our day’s dramas.

When we want to “go crazy” at the driver who cut us off.

When a bickering conversation sets our emotions on fire.

When “RED” creeps in because a phone rep isn’t saying what we want to hear.

None of those “places” are places we have to visit.

Our brains, tongues and actions belong to us.

We hold the remote control that runs the Xbox sitting on our shoulders.

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OFTEN…

There’s very little we can do about MUCH.

But when MUCH happens…

We decide how much it gets to harm our mental and emotional day.

Thoughts.

May we own ours to our greatest benefit.

Often…I try.

Occasionally…I succeed.

Proving one more time…

Old dogs can learn new tricks.

This one is.

S.