Perspective

By the time you are reading this I'm hopefully somewhere in the mountains of Colorado hunting for elk, or maybe fishing or enjoying the night sky, or trying to sleep on the hard ground and missing Jenelle and the family and wondering what everyone is up to. But hopefully we've made it to our destination. The bigger hope is that we will be able to get an elk. 

We often think that getting to our destination is the first step. But even before that, all of those steps of planning and actually committing to the adventure are as important as getting there. And for me, that's tough.

I'm a great dreamer and I have lots of things that I would like to do in this short life. I love adventure, at least if it's the outdoor kind, and so it's easy for me to say or think, “I'm doing this”. If that's all that was required to make dreams come true, I'd be on a new adventure every week. But everything takes planning and even just working out  little details can become cumbersome for me and take the joy out of the trip. Luckily Jenelle loves that sort of thing, the planning and the details, and so when we do trips together everything seems to flow perfectly to plan. But she doesn't hunt, and so for me that means that when I'm on a hunting trip, I need to lean heavily on the guys I'm with or get my butt in gear and get to work myself. Some of it's easy and fun but other things like figuring out what food to pack for two weeks can leave me feeling frustrated. Generally I end up carrying way too much food and gear that I don't need, and that's not fun either. Sometimes it makes an adventure even more of an adventure.

How many arrows will I need? How many fishing lures should I take? Canoe camping is one thing, but carrying everything on your back is another.

For the most part I can look back on my hunting trips with fond memories of beautiful views, exciting adventures of getting close and taking an animal, the fishing, those times when everything almost came together, when that buck needed to take one more step or that bull elk that screamed his head off just above us but wouldn't show himself. That's what keeps me coming back for more.

But there's the other side too. It doesn't take long to forget about the mosquitoes when canoeing, the freezing fingers and the burning lungs, the hard ground and frozen boots or the long drive it takes to get there, getting wet and feeling like there's not a dry stitch of clothes anywhere, or even worse, getting blisters on your feet. But in real time they are there. Those are the things that make me start missing Jenelle and the comforts of home. Those are the things that help me to remember what I have. Those are the things that bring out the gratefulness in me.

It's easy to take things for granted, to get complacent and content with what we have. 

As we rush off to work we often walk out to the truck without even looking up at the sky. We get stuck in our routine and start begrudging the job we should love. We go through life without recognizing the impacts that our friends and loved ones have on us or that we have on them. We don't appreciate our opportunities. We don't recognize that every day is a new day. The challenges become work. We focus on the hard parts. 

If we don't step back, life gets dull and mundane.

But when we step away, we get a different perspective. We start to miss the little things that we so easily overlook. A lack of water creates thirst. When we start to recognize those things, it creates gratitude and thankfulness.

If going on an elk hunt can do that, it's definitely worth it. Of course I might have a different perspective during the hunt. After a couple of cold nights, wet boots, sore shoulders and the same old trail food, I'll have those moments where I'll wish I was hanging out with Jenelle, watching a movie and eating some ice cream. But being able to be here, loving the adventure, having a supportive and loving wife that lets me chase my dreams, just writing this blog, all of those things, I can't help but to be thankful. Whether or not I get an elk won't change that. But having the wrong perspective will.