Trading Comfort for Growth

I am no longer asking: "Why am I doing this?"

Meanwhile other people still ask me: “But why are you doing this?”

“Irgendwie muess mer sich ja beschäftige…” (Somehow we have to find a way to pass our time, no?) I tell them, and it shuts them up. At least for a short moment.

And I like to pass my time crossing mountains by bike, that’s all. Does it have to make sense?

My guess is, it doesn’t have to.

If you choose clean clothes and a safe place to sleep. Instead of exhaustion, drenched in sweat between mountain peaks, I won’t judge you for that. I know to appreciate the comfort of a door you can lock behind yourself. Feeling safe, like no one can come and disturb your peace. I know the comfort of a shower, standing under the warm flow of water, impossible to get enough of it.

But somehow, as much as I know the comfort of these things, as soon as I have them, there is something missing. They do not make me grow, they don’t fill me with the same energy, getting lost in these mountains does.

When I stand under the steaming hot stream of a shower, after days of cycling in the heat and in the rain, I stand there for hours. My whole body suddenly remembers, that there exists something like comfort. Nonetheless I can’t leave without turning the shower head ice cold at the end.

When I suddenly have supermarkets and a full kitchen to my disposal, I adore it at first. Cook myself all the chicken I had dreamt of in these mountain peaks. I eat all the fruits and salads I can possibly imagine. Nonetheless, after a few meals I get overwhelmed by all the choices. Too many ingredients, so many shelves full of things I suddenly want to buy and know I don’t need.

When I enter the door of a flat again, I feel how my whole body just suddenly relaxes, as the door closes behind me. Safe behind walls, I can just lay down, sleep or shower, change into something clean and warm, eat and write or read. Nonetheless it takes little more than three days, sometimes not even, until I feel trapped by these same walls. Every time I go out I need a reason where to go and what to do there. When the windows are closed I can’t hear the sound of the wind, the birds and the trees. Neighbours all around yet everyone is by themselves.

As much as a lot of people might think it’s crazy to trade all that convenient comfort for uncertainty and effort. I do go crazy if I don’t. And in a way that’s why I do it. To stay sane, to stay connected to myself, to put my ego back into it’s place. To remember what really matters and to see how far I can get myself.

This isn’t a trip, there is no leaving and coming back. This is me, it is my life, started somewhere without my consent and since then just keeps on going.

The pain that makes me grow is the one I choose. Building something with the life I was given instead of watching it pass.

I prefer crossing mountains before breakfast instead of taking the bus to work. And I’ll choose the uncertainty of never knowing where I'll sleep that night over the convenient safety of my own flat.

That’s why I am doing this.

Thank you for passing by, enjoy your week!

All photos and words are owned by ©kesityu taken and written by myself.