The Pursuit of Happiness

The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness.

~ Lululemon

What is it that makes us run? What is it that makes people push others away and hide behind their metaphorical wall? Why do we do it to ourselves? Why is it that the moment we finally get everything we could ever dream of, we turn and walk the other way? Why is it that everything we’ve ever wanted is the very thing we destroy once it’s in our hands?

Maybe it’s fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Fear of the past. Fear of the future. Fear of being inadequate. Fear of what could be. Fear of what isn’t. Fear of ourselves and everything in between.

Maybe it’s a habit we cannot break. Maybe it’s something that will always be there. Maybe it’s our own intuitive defense system for prevention of hurt. Prevention of pain. Maybe the walls will never fully be broken down. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s everything.

I find it funny that the basis of all our existence here on this planet is an eternal search for love. To be loved. To love. To have love. To give love. To be with people who care about us the same way we care about them. To surround ourselves with people who “get” us. Who accept us for who we are. Who can be a shoulder to lean on. An ear to listen. A figure of support. Someone to laugh with. Cry with. Someone to share life with. The good times and bad. A best friend. Someone to just be with. To do everything. To do nothing. It’s funny that this is what we all long for. Crave for. And yet it is the very thing we run from once we have it.

It's the thing that when taken from us feels as though our heart has just been ripped out. It feels like we've been trampled. As though we can no longer breathe. It makes us question why we let ourselves love to begin with - may even question our reasons for existing at all. When taken away, love can make us feel the lowest of lows. Make us wonder what we did wrong, even when it was nothing we did at all. It crushes us as though we were merely a pest under someone's foot. When love is taken from us, it takes everything we ever thought we had.

Someone recently told me that they have a history of randomly pushing people away for no reason at all. As if things were too good to be true and they had to ruin it to prove it wasn’t meant to be. I could relate. With a history of building a fortress around me so tall and strong it’s impossible to break through, I get it. It’s tough to let someone in and be okay with it. It’s tough to let the walls crumble, to let someone see the real me and not freak out about it. It’s tough to let my guard down. To show I don’t have it all together all the time. To be vulnerable. It’s tough to care, all the while knowing that I could one day be left to pick up the broken pieces of my heart.

It’s why I think the pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness. True happiness comes from love. It comes from deep inside the soul. So rich. So pure. And yet, with love one risks everything. To truly love one must give their all. To have it be real. Hold nothing back. Trust the other person to catch them when they fall. And the brilliance of it all is that you cannot ever help who you love. You just do.

And I’m not just talking about the kind of love found in some romantic relationship. Love is so much more than with that one person. It is with your friends. The kindred spirits that surround you. It’s with your family – the people you may never quite understand, but will love till the day you die. It’s the love that happens when you get the phone call at 3 a.m. and don’t care that you’re sleep’s been disturbed. It’s the love that happens when you share a stupid joke with a friend and can laugh about it for hours until your sides hurt. And then laugh some more. It’s the love that happens when someone holds back your hair when you’re sick. When the world can come crashing down around you and they stand by you, holding your hand. It’s the love that happens when you can look into each other’s eyes and have a full conversation without ever saying a word. It’s the love that happens when you can screw up royally and they can still forgive you and move on like it never happened. It’s the love that happens when you push each other to reach for the stars. To take chase your innermost desires. To go after the goal that seems crazier than life itself. It’s the love that just is. That stands the test of time. That won’t budge no matter how ridiculous it seems. It just is.

It’s that kind of love that everyone searches for. That everyone longs for. That everyone dreams for. And yet it is that very love that everyone runs from. That everyone crushes. That everyone shuts down and scoffs at. It’s that love that everyone is so skeptical about that they’d rather be miserable on their own than risk getting everything they ever wanted.

As time goes on, I find I am realizing more and more what exactly is important in life. What should be important in my life. I don’t care about money. I don’t care about things. I don’t care about aging or being famous. I don’t care about a lot of things that society continuously tries to tell me I should. All that matters are the simple things. All I care about is that I make the most of the moment. That I have good health. That I enjoy what nature has blessed this world with. That I spend time on the relationships that matter in life. That I take time to love those that I care about.

I don’t know what makes us run. I don’t know what makes people push others away and hide behind their metaphorical wall. I don’t know why we do this. I don’t know why the moment we finally get everything we could ever dream of, we turn and walk the other way. I don’t know why it is that everything we’ve ever wanted is the very thing we destroy once it’s in our hands. I don’t know much. But what I do know is quite simple.




All we need is love.

~ Beatles



Dance, Sing, Floss and Travel

Dance, sing, floss and travel.

~ Lululemon

I find it hard to believe that I am here in New Zealand still. Continuously I have to pinch myself to remind myself that it's not a dream. This is my reality. And it's awesome. Now that Robin Hood is done, my short acting career has come to a close and life is slowly returning back to normal. I got my hair cut (it's been a year). I got some new shoes (I'd been trading off between gumboots and borrowing Alex's). I went and joined the weekly darts tournament. That's right - darts. Never played before, but I figured it'd be interesting to learn and get to know some more people. It was a blast and I can't wait till I can actually throw the dart where I want to.

I've begun experimenting with cooking - spicy chicken fajitas. Pumpkin and chickpea curry. Hearty lamb and veggie soup. Yum. Not to mention the fact that I FINALLY invested in a hairdryer. I've been without one since I started travelling over two years ago. Went okay when in Australia and my hair would dry in two seconds with the heat all year round, but here at the camp -- well, I tend to think twice when there's frost on the ground and I have to scamper in-between buildings with wet hair as my exhaled breath clogs my vision.

Yup. Life is good. It is simple. Next week I hope to get up to the slopes to do some much-needed snowboarding. With any luck I won't be constantly comparing New Zealand's snow to the deep powder back in Canada. It'd also be cool to head out of Hanmer Springs and go exploring in the nearby areas. Kaikoura comes to mind. In the meantime I've got work to focus on as well as a decision of what to do in a month's time. The clock keeps on ticking.

The other week I walked home after an evening spent catching up with friends at a local pub while listening to live music and I found myself alone on the road. In the dark. Surrounded by the Hanmer Forest. All I could do was stand in awe as millions of stars shone brightly above me. Shooting stars darted across the sky and I made my wishes. And then I danced my way home, not caring who saw. Because it was dark. Because I was alone. Because there was a good song on my iPod. Because I could.

That seems to be the theme here in Hanmer Springs for me. As I look back over my time that I have spent here, so much of what I have chosen to do has been because I could. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would be spending these past few months running a half marathon. Never would I have thought I would be taking the lead role in a local pantomime production nor would I have thought I would be taking photographs for the camp to update their website. Not to mention I never thought I would be sleeping in a box of a cabin while I spent my days cleaning toilets for minimal money. And not wanting to really change a thing.

Hanmer Springs - living in a snow globe

And so... because I can – I have made the decision to stay on a while longer yet. Steve and Lynne at the camp have graciously offered me a newly-created job position to work at the camp as a Volunteer and Fundraiser Coordinator. As the camp has never had someone filling in this role before it would be an amazing experience (and big challenge) to step into that position and see what I can do. Everything I have been doing in the past few years has been leading up to this point and I’m totally stoked to see where it will take me. Sure, there are many - many question marks surrounding what this all means for my future, but I am okay with that. It will all work itself out.

As someone close to me recently said, “good things take time,” I am well aware that the universe is telling me to be patient for what is yet to come in my life. I have been discovering that decisions such as these really are not as simple as what they first appear. Making the decision to stay on was one thing. Developing a solid job description of what I would be doing was the next. What has followed those few minor days of angst have been a whirlwind emotional rollercoaster ride which has left me both completely brain-fried and breathless – not to mention the inside of my cheeks are totally munted from me unconsciously chewing on them to relieve the stress.

See – technically I am not actually applying to extend my working holiday visa. I am applying for a completely new work visa to stay in New Zealand. Quite simply because it would allow me more flexibility to stay on for a longer chunk of time and get the most out of the experience. At this point I am looking at a general scope of two years to stay on. Yes – I know – two whole years. It seems crazy, but why not?

And so with the decision to do something like this, the paperwork to fill out has piled up. My phone bill has been exceeded multiple times in order to contact related persons of interest in order to answer my many (so many) questions of what is involved to get this right. I went to Christchurch at 6 a.m. one day to try and get in for a medical check-up only to find myself on the side of the road as me and Nick fixed a flat tire we got after driving over some invisible object that made Nick’s wheel rim spontaneously explode. No joke. When we eventually made it to Christchurch and Nick dropped me off at the doctor’s, I quickly found out I wouldn’t be getting the check-up needed for my visa application. I had forgotten my passport back in Hanmer Springs. So I went shopping instead.

When I finally made it back to Christchurch a few days later (passport securely in hand), I went through the agonizing process of waiting my turn to get a chest x-ray, then blood work, blood pressure, height, weight, waist circumference (not sure what that had to do with helping me to stay in New Zealand) and an urinalysis. Never knew peeing in a cup was such a skill. From that they told me I was not pregnant. Good to know. $428 later, I left the doctor’s office with a lighter wallet and a spinning head. I hadn’t eaten since the night before because of the blood tests and it was now after one in the afternoon.

The next hurdle was the “proof of character.” Aka: Criminal Record Check. Aka: Police Certificate. As I am in New Zealand, this process involves me getting fingerprints done at a police station here and then sending them to Canada along with a processing fee of which I then wait patiently for them to process the request and return me the Police Certificate. Sounds simple in theory, but when considering time is my enemy here, and the Canadian Post has a tendency to go on strike every other month; the estimated time of processing by the RCMP of 12 weeks seems like an eternity. Even still, while in Christchurch I went on the hunt for the nearest police station. It happened to be a good half an hour walk to the city centre from Riccarton where across the street the Bridge of Remembrance sat completely munted still from the February earthquake. I walked inside and stated my request to the receptionist only to be informed that they only do fingerprinting in the morning. It was nearly 2:30 p.m. Fortunately for me there wasn’t much crime going on that day and there happened to be a constable available with nothing better to do but roll my fingers in black ink. Perfect. Within 15 minutes I was done. If only the actual processing of the fingerprints was as easy.

And so it goes. There have been issues of trying to get a money order from the bank here in Hanmer Springs only to be denied because I am not a customer of that bank (and therefore I have to potentially go to Christchurch again). There’s been the issue of ensuring the Hanmer Springs Forest Camp Trust is behind the decision to create a new job position. There’s still the issue of where I am going to be sleeping every night as I surely don’t want to be holed up in a small cabin for the next two years of my life. And now the issue of my quickly depleting bank funds due to all the fees involved with processing the application. Not to mention the fact that if my current visa expires before the new one gets processed then I am essentially stuck in New Zealand as I would have no legal right to leave or enter until I get word from the immigration office. Guess my dreams of a holiday on a hot tropical beach on some island north of here will be out of the question for the next few months.


Alex and I make it into the current issue of
NZ Fitness Magazine for trekking Te Araroa Trail

 But that’s all fairly minor in comparison to what this means as far as my overall lifestyle is concerned. Because that is what this comes down to – me choosing to stay here in Hanmer Springs is a lifestyle choice. It is choosing a community that has welcomed me with open arms. It is choosing a slower-paced life that allows me to do everything I’ve always wanted to do and then some. It is choosing to live where my backyard is the mountains all around me. It is choosing to do something to push myself further. It’s choosing a challenge of a new job that will add to my experience in the area of community development and social services. It is choosing to just be.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about what I will be giving up in order to stay here. And that thought is very difficult to contemplate. How does one choose something like this and not feel remotely torn up over knowing it will mean a further extension of separation from loved ones back at home? Granted, I have already done two years, so what’s two more? But the thing is – when I started travelling, that was all it was. Travelling. There was no time limit, no expectation or commitment for when I would be done. It just was. One day at a time – see where it would take me. I just never thought it would take me here.

And sure, two years is not forever, but it is still a long time. A lot can happen in two years, the last two years is surely a case in point. And it’s heartbreaking to know that in choosing to stay here in New Zealand, I am missing out in what is going on back in Canada. Birthday’s, holidays, summers, winters, coffee dates and movies. In choosing to live here I am giving up living in Canada. Right now it’s not forever, but two years is still two years.

Yet, even still, I know that this is right for me. Provided I get accepted, of course. Lululemon’s four small words certainly ring true to me in this time of waiting. Because I have danced. Because I have sung. Because I have flossed. Because I most definitely have travelled. And it still isn’t over. It never is. This is the journey that never ends.