“Personal improvement...”

Light reflects off the smooth ripples of water in hues of yellow, orange, red and pink, flowing together like dark molten glass shaped by the light wind. The sky grows darker with each passing second as the sun dips below the horizon to end another day. With muscles fatigued from hours of effort I lay on my surfboard with my body half submerged in the cool dark water, paddling towards the horizon in search of one last wave. Denielle waits on the beach in the encroaching darkness as I stalk my elusive prey. My body pleads with my brain to just go in now and give up to gain the rest it so desperately needs and deserves. But I know that somewhere, deep down inside each and every cell, there remains a reserve that I can tap into for one last burst of effort. Alas, creeping in from the horizon my prey approaches. What started off as winds blowing ripples in the water far off the Alaskan shores has now travelled thousands of kilometres to meet me now, and soon will have disappeared into the shore, never to be experienced again. I harness this energy with one last burst of my own energy, every muscle in my back and shoulders screaming with objection as I coarse through the water. The water lifts and surges forward and I slide down the glassy face and approach the beach.

What drives me, and many of us I believe, is the want or need to become better at what we do. Personal improvement at whatever task, job, sport, or activity brings a sense of satisfaction, albeit however short or briefly lived. For the moment we improve at anything, we must yet improve once again, or we fall into a state of stasis. Sometimes we take on too many activities or interests, and it becomes impossible to improve at them all, spreading ourselves too thin, so we tend to go on auto pilot from day to day with nothing really changing. I discovered this a long time ago with all of the various sports and activities that I enjoyed. Time and energy are always limiting factors, and soon I discovered that if I wasn’t getting decent returns on my investments of either, that those activities would fall by the wayside. I need to see some signs of personal improvement to truly enjoy the things that I am doing, especially as I get older and the time available to become good or master different things diminishes significantly.

Surfing has become my new raison d’être. For a while I was content in just catching the waves and riding along, making small improvements, but not what I would like with the amount of time and effort I have invested so far in this trip. Everything changed this week when I bought a new surfboard. This board is superior in many ways to my other boards that I had tediously crafted one winter in a friend’s garage, but most significantly it is far more manoeuvrable and agile. While it took a day to get used to the tiny board skittering about beneath my feet, the additional speed and control has now got me surfing better than I ever have. And this has renewed my inner spark and passion for the sport as I can see myself improving by leaps and bounds with every new day. It is this feeling of improvement that gives me great joy as I realize that I am becoming better. But to become better in this sense takes great concentration and devotion, perhaps the reason why this sport is so addictive. Much like biking for me, when I am pushing my own personal limits so close to the edge of my abilities that I move beyond those and improve, I have no time to think about anything else. All of your worries and cares are forgotten for that brief period that you are locked in the moment.

Quite often I think too many people become preoccupied with the past or the future and forget to enjoy the present moment. This whole trip is a big part of getting back to living in the present and enjoying each and every part of every experience and every moment. Using these experiences to improve myself as well, not just in the surfing, but in my awareness of all my surroundings has become a great part of my every day. Taking the time to enjoy the simple being of flower blowing in the breeze, or a pelican gracefully riding the crest of a wave has allowed me to become a more complete person. I enjoy writing about these experiences and hope that in telling these tales others may become inspired to go after their own journeys. You don’t have to drive 10,000km to improve your perspective, although it helps, it is simply making more out of every day by removing the clutter from our lives and trying to make ourselves happy by turning off the auto pilot and improving ourselves one task at a time. Don’t forget to stop every once and a while and simply take in the awe of all the life around you. We don’t live in the past or the future, so embrace the present and enjoy it while it’s here.

Tyler.