Cake

It was my New Year’s resolution to eat more chocolate cake…and to walk the distance from Zhongshan to

Beijing. So far, I’m succeeding at only one of those. But today I got to eat cake and it put me on cloud nine. There are very few things in the world that make me happier than chocolate cake. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about cake and freedom lately. There are so many flavors of freedom, and I have tasted many of them on this trip. I want to break a few of these experiences down for you.

I didn’t feel free at the beginning of this trip. I guess I didn’t feel that I had a choice in this matter because I had made the decision to do this back in August of last year. I wanted to honor that, but I also wanted comfort. I’ve done a lot of wrestling with these conflicting wants. This is a war that is so innately human that it’s comical. In the beginning, it was like a WWF Monday night wrestling match between my "Rock" hard head and my "Stone Cold" heart. The match continued even after we left Zhongshan…especially after we left Zhongshan. My head thought it still had a chance even after my heart was wearing the championship gold belt, signing autographs for fans, and hitting the showers. That’s such a strange metaphor, but I’m going with it.

The truth is that this trip has brought a lot of my personal demons out of their cages. This has resulted in a lot of bad days…and a lot of bad moods. Poor Ann. She has put up with so much shit. The best example of this happened back in February. It was the worst day of the trip (other than the bus incident back home) for good reason. It had rained every day for over a week. We were wet, as was all of our gear. We hadn’t been dry in days. I remember stopping to give fruit to a man who was sitting on the side of the road with no clothes and only a blanket covering him from the rain. It was a very cold day. The sight of him broke my heart. I was already having a hard day before I saw that man. I asked myself, “Who am I to have a bad day when this guy has less than I do?” But I didn’t feel better, I felt worse. After we saw the man, we walked a long way and we weren’t anywhere close to a hotel. A gnarly blister developed on my right pinky toe and it hurt with every step. I was cold, wet, in pain, and exhausted. And that’s when my head started doing the mean things that it does to me sometimes. Does your brain do this? Like a movie in my head, it began to play back every time I’ve fallen short…every time I did something I shouldn’t have, and every time I’ve embarrassed myself by being an idiot. It was like Niagra Falls of shame and embarrassment gushing though my head. I couldn’t take it. On top of everything else I was dealing with, I refused to take the abuse. I screamed at myself in my own head. God, maybe I am crazy. I screamed at myself to shut up…to be nice. I told myself that I have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing. This was the day that something broke in me. Since that day, I have been a lot kinder to myself. I still sometimes go into autopilot and think mean thoughts about myself in front of mirrors (I think things about myself that I would NEVER say about anyone else. What an awful double standard). But now I can view my self-criticism as my subconscious want to be better, expressed in a misguided, hateful way. There's room for improvement here. I’ve started two traditions of kindness that are strange and a little bit crazy. I’ll share them with you anyway.

1) I've started washing my feet. When was the last time you actually washed your feet? Sure, they always get clean in the shower, but do you ever actually take time to wash the things that handle your weight all day, every day? Taking a minute to wash my feet slows life down enough for me to be so thankful for the simplest, most amazing things in my life that I often take for granted. Try washing your feet. If you don’t have feet, try a head massage because that feels amazing, too.

2) I’ve started giving myself a pep talk in the morning. The thing I’ve noticed about this is how much I can tell about my mental state just by taking a few minutes to encourage myself. I liken this to warming up before a tennis match. How is your topspin working today?How's your focus? On rough days, my pep talk usually sounds like this: “This shit is hard. I totally get why you wouldn’t want to do this because it isn’t easy. If you want to hide under the covers today, I fully support your decision. Though, take a second to think about the potential benefits of going out into the world today. Maybe there will be beautiful flowers. Maybe there will be something to laugh at. Maybe there are people out there who would be delighted to meet you….maybe there’s cake”. 

These little acts of compassion actually help me be a better human. No bullying necessary. 

In the past, I would beat myself up for having things that others don't. It’s the classic, “there are starving children in Africa” guilt trip that mothers pull on finicky children. What a crock of shit. Being appreciative of what we have is important, but a guilt trip only creates resentment. I’d rather deal with truth. My truth is that I haven’t always felt like doing this walk even though I dreamed it up and committed. But I did it anyway.

I see this as a tier of wants...like a wedding cake. Whichever want I place at the top supersedes all other wants. At the top of my cake, I put the want to walk the distance from Zhongshan to Beijing to raise money for New Day South. Every day since February 1^st, I have acted according to this want. The everlasting trouble is that the other wants on the lower tiers don’t go away. I still want comfortable beds, clean air, family time, pretty feet, a sense of

home, dinners with friends, to speak and be understood, clean bathrooms, and chocolate cake. On the top of my pyramid of wants, I put something that made filling my many other wants improbable for four months. That has made for a lot of hard days. I can’t think of a better way to put this than Eric Thomas did in one of his speeches. He tells the story of a young man who went to an old sage for advice on how to be successful. The guru tells the young man to meet him on the beach at sunrise. The next morning, they meet and go out into deep water where the guru grabs the young man and holds his head underwater. The young man struggles and thrashes and fights, but the guru is too strong to overcome. Finally, when the young man is about to drown, the guru releases him. After the young man catches his breath, the sage says, “When you want to succeed as bad as
 you want to breathe, then you will be successful.” Eric Thomas goes on to say that some people want success, but they don’t want it more than they want to party or be admired or sleep.

I’m not sure that I can say that I want to finish this as much as I want air. Inversely, if I wanted air, I wouldn’t be trekking to Beijing. Maybe I want this more than I want air. Either way, you get the metaphor.

In the beginning, I felt that I was a slave to the decision I’d made to chase this dream. But that wasn’t true. I was a slave to negativity. I yearned for the pile of things I didn’t have, and I was guilt tripping myself for the things I do have. What a terrible cage to be in. It took me a long time to realize that I am the key holder. 

There is a sense of freedom that accompanies the pursuit of a dream, and there is even more freedom in coming to terms with the fact that the pursuit can be unpleasant and downright miserable at times. And that's ok. It's an important part of the human experience. This leads me to my next dimension of freedom: appreciation. Appreciation is like a muscle. And when you don’t exercise it properly, it’s difficult to get into shape. It physically, emotionally, and spiritually hurts to strengthen this muscle. Some people live their whole lives without exercising it. Everyone can find his or her own way to make it strong. For me, it means slowing down. Sometimes I get it in my head that life is a race and I need to come in first or else I'm worthless. That’s a weird lie that I get caught up in. I don’t know who started it, but he or she should be reprimanded. Life is not a race. For me, appreciation means looking at the bigger picture. It means asking questions. What does this experience have to teach me? How might that lesson help me in the future? It means owning the fact that I am choosing to be here, meaning some clever part of me wants this for me even though I'm not comfortable. It means trusting that experiences don't have to FEEL good to BE good (imagine pain. It feels awful, and it's an important form of communication between your body and mind. We could easily die without it. If my stomach didn't start hurting when I was 14, I wouldn't have known to go to the hospital and a doctor never would have taken my inflamed appendix out. Pain helps us survive.) And sometimes it just means breathing. I’ve started looking at this walk as a game and it has helped my mood tremendously. Every time I have to eat food that I don't like in order to survive, a point is deducted. Every time I smell poo or garbage while walking or I have to use a dirty, soggy outhouse, a point is deducted. Every time I’m mean to myself or I worry about how I’ll pay for grad

school, a point is deducted. But there are plusses, too. Every time I Skype someone I love, a point is added. When I give myself a positive talk or wash my feet or get to eat yummy food, a point is added. When I find a rose to smell or a joke at which to laugh, a point is added. The game becomes about strategizing positivity and actively looking for opportunities to feed my soul each day. Life isn’t a race, it’s a game. Freedom is the prize. Let’s play.