Going further together

A month ago my friend Ally and I were running together. We were about 8km in when the dirt road started sloping down, leading us closer to the river. Finally catching our breath, I looked over at Ally and told her I was so, so thankful for our friendship. We’d met ten months earlier, but in those ten months we had done so much.

We had slept under star filled skies, backpacked our way to beautiful views on the island, had hard conversation about feminism, racism, love, bravery, betrayal, loss, displacement, dreams, hopes, the value of choosing the kind of life we want to live. We had driven coast to coast across Canada, traveling thousands of kilometres, slept in the backseat and trunk of a car for a month, hiked high mountains with beautiful views and high mountains with no views. We had been uncomfortable and cold and wet. We tripped and fell and laughed and ate copious amounts of noodles and beans. We snowshoed and tented and completed workout programs, ran her first 10km, ran even further. We saw beauty in every province and we came back home and saw it here, too. And we were just a few hours away from parting ways because she was moving that very afternoon.

So, yeah, I looked over at Ally and told her I couldn’t put into words just how thankful I was for her. Because of her friendship, I knew that I could do hard things. I never would have backpacked on my own or driven across Canada. If I was alone, I wouldn’t have climbed those mountains or ran those kilometres or endured the freezing cold of Saskatoon in the trunk of a car. I wouldn’t have watched the stars for as long or opened up conversations about the challenging, controversial topics of racism or feminism. Because of our friendship, I was better. I was braver. And I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I could do hard things. That, after the last 10 months, I was made for it even. But the real thing that our friendship taught me? The real nugget that has come out of it? Sure, I can do hard things. But with Ally, we can do hard things together.

You know where we learned that? Outside. 

It doesn’t take a whole lot of courage to sit in my bedroom alone, read books or watch an entire season on Netflix, but it takes some guts to pack a tent, strap on a backpack and hike over mountains. A Friday night in with some dill pickle chips doesn’t demand much for me. It doesn’t ask that I put myself out there or push my body or test my limits. Sunrise hikes, five weeks of living in a car, summiting mountains when I’m shaking and cold and soaked? That asks something of me. That demands I step outside of who I think I am and step into someone I am becoming. 

Maybe that’s it. Maybe we’re all just in this process of becoming. Maybe we’re all part of an unwritten, unfinished story. Maybe we aren’t the best version of ourselves yet. Maybe we aren’t “there” yet- wherever there is. 

And maybe, maybe we will only ever become who we’re meant to be when we go on the journey together. 

In a society that is so focused on getting ahead, on being the best, so honed in on beating others to get the fame, maybe the real truth is that going alone will never get us there. We are constantly fed this idea that being at the top will make us happy, so we jump into a rat race where the finish line is constantly moved and always just a little out of reach. We spend hours scrolling and scrolling, looking at people and longing for what they have. Then we lock our screens and jump into our lives alone and we wonder why we never get very far. 

Maybe we’re all out here fighting to get to the top and we’re taking paths we were never really meant to take. 

Maybe we can redefine “success”. Maybe we can share burdens and joys with each other. Maybe we can shine a light into the darkness for our friends when they just can’t see it themselves. Maybe we can offer hope for each other on the hard days. Maybe we can strap on some boots and push one another to get to the top of the mountain. Maybe we can hold up mirrors to each other that show our flaws and our strengths and maybe we can lend each other the bravery on this journey of becoming. 

Maybe.

I admit, I’m not very old so I don’t know much yet, but I do know that I’ve gone farther, done better, been better when I’ve surrounded myself with strong men and women who don’t just tell me I can get to the top of the mountain but who walk up the mountain with me. I know that I make more progress on this journey when I do it side by side with people than when I go it alone. 

A friend of mine used to always say,

“If you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together.”

Maybe that’s it. The sum total of what this friendship and the outdoors has taught me over the last year. There’s a whole lot of gold inside of you. There’s a whole, huge, wild amount of skills and abilities in you. Right now. You can discover some of them alone, sure, but you know what? I bet you’ll find out a whole lot more if you have people around helping you uncover them, too.

Maybe it’s time we move the finish line ourselves, time to set different goals. Maybe getting to the top shouldn’t be our aim anymore. Maybe a good and kind life lived with people you love and trust- people who push you and walk up those mountains beside you- is better.

Maybe the first step is making the space to let them in. 

See you out there.

Written by: Annika Phillips

Hopes, dreams and the possibility of failure

Photo by: Jimmie Pederson

This past weekend, Lee and a team took four days to paddle the entire Margaree River from start to finish. It was something that we worked four, long months to pull together. It was more than just a hard excursion, it was an entire project with multiple facets that we will share more about as the time goes on. It was difficult to plan; there was one period in March where we didn’t think we’d pull it off. Honestly, as time got closer and the largeness of the project and the rules of lockdown closed in, there were moments where I thought I don’t know if this will be possible.

I was born and raised in Margaree. In grade 12 as people were celebrating university acceptance letters and planning to decorate their dorm, I bought a plane ticket to East Africa and a second one to western Europe. By that point in my life I had heard so many stories from people who went to university because they felt pressured to. They took years of time to please parents or teachers because university is a must to be successful. These same people told me of the debt they were still paying off, decades later, while working jobs they didn’t enjoy. I don’t know how many times I heard things like, “I wanted to travel but university happened and then debt and then a mortgage,” or “I always dreamed of starting a business, but I just couldn’t.” 

So there I was, 17 years old and more terrified to spend years of my life spending money I didn’t have doing things I didn’t want than I was of going against the status quo. One teacher told me, word for word: “you will never succeed in anything if you don’t go to university straight out of high school. You will put it off and put it off and you will never end up going. You will never be able to have a successful job or career or buy a house if you don’t go now.” She proceeded to say something about how my dreams were good and all, as an idea, but weren’t practical. 

I got on the plane anyway. And you know what? She was right. I never ended up going to university. I travelled. I started something that I’d always dreamt of doing and I frequently met people from small towns like the area I grew up in who had also gone against the status quo and had been laughed at for it. 

Time passed and I lived on multiple continents and in multiple countries and I thought of Margaree often. I thought of young people who were in high school being told that there was no way they could succeed if they didn’t go get a degree. Right now.

And then Lee started Live Life InTents and it was, undoubtedly, against the status quo. I was living in Peru when him and his brother, Liam, first came out with the idea. In a small area filled with farms and a population well above the age of 50, some young guys were starting an adventure company. And they weren’t using their university degrees to do it. 

Photo by: Jimmie Pederson

It’s been a few years since then and Live Life InTents continues to grow and grow. More people come each year and they keep coming back because they can’t help themselves. I feel like I can boast about this stuff because I just work here.

Flash forward from all of that to a few days ago. On day three of this project I was sitting on top of a cliff as I watched the team paddle part of the Margaree River. Lee passed by beneath me and for a split second tears welled up in my eyes and I thought, we did it. He did it. This impossible trip is happening.

Mind you, this trip was hard. The team can tell you just how far they were pushed physically and mentally. There were things we could have planned and prepped differently. Things we could have avoided, could have changed. The team was stretched to a breaking point and there were times, they have said, that they didn’t think they could finish the trip. 

But there they were, in their canoes, kayaks and on their paddle boards and I was so emotional because these kind of things aren’t common in small towns. In areas with small populations and in a culture that is so insistent on university degrees, it isn’t exactly normal to lead people on new ventures. It’s not common to have people begin new things, start hard projects, attempt difficult tasks while knowing failure is a possibility. 

Photo by: Jimmie Pederson

Maybe I was emotional because it gave me so much hope. Here Lee was, adding a whole new aspect to his company with no guarantees that it would work. Nothing but ambition and heart coupled with some logistics and planning was carrying him. There was no promise that this would succeed but he did it anyway. 

I just wonder how many of us carry around hopes and dreams without ever acting on them. I wonder how many of us have longed for something since childhood and we never managed to find the bravery to pick it up among the work and the debt and the degrees. I wonder how many young people from small towns enrol in courses because their parents say so, all the while their imagination is dimmed more and more every year as they slowly let go of the things they once dreamt of. 

And I wonder, more than anything, what it means when someone like Lee goes against the grain. I wonder what happens when we act on our dreams and our hopes. I wonder what will happen to the younger generation coming up behind us when we get brave. I wonder what kind of example we set and the impact it could have for years to come.

Here’s the thing. Some of us dream of writing books, starting companies, moving countries. Some of us have dreams that will wildly change how our lives look today and that can be terrifying. Others want to take up running, pick up a paint brush, take a dance class, but shame and embarrassment keep us from doing that. Whatever it is, whatever you’ve longed for, you’ve really only got this one chance. This one life. This one shot to put some flesh to your words and do something about it. If your heart is still beating, then there is still time left to go after it.

Photo by: Jimmie Pederson

This is it. It’s all you’ve got. You might look silly. You might not succeed. You might fail. You might get hurt. You might have to be vulnerable. 

But this is it. This life is all you’ve got. At the end of the day, wouldn’t you rather have tried and failed than have sat back with nothing but old dreams?

Lace up the shoes. Do some research on the business idea. Sign up to the dance class. Paint. Draw. Laugh hard and loud and long. Look at plane tickets. Get brave in the face of what might be scary. In the face of failure.

As Josh Lynott says,
No risk, no story. 

Written by: Annika Phillips