Thinking too much, pt. 2

One thing that has been in our mind lately is the concept of success. Particularly how we define success. For us, having set ourselves a goal that can even be labeled as unrealistic (or at least overly optimistic) success is not so much reaching the goal per se. It is having the courage of giving it a try.

All too often we won’t even try for fear of not succeeding, of being a failure. But true failure is not a question of not reaching your goal, rather of not challenging yourself. Or more specifically, of limiting yourself out of fear of not being up for the task.

The feeling of being a failure is ever so much more strong when under the scrutiny of the public eye. We’ve got many people so excited about our trip, we have sponsors who are helping us out, people rooting for us. And all of this is something we really, really appreciate.

But at the same time it puts a lot of pressure on us. Not because the public would demand anything from us. It is more like a feeling that we need to show the world that we are strong enough. Committed. Even when there are moments that we would want to do nothing more than curl up into a small ball and hide from the big bad world. We ARE small. Imperfect.

And still we try. We will ride. One day at a time. And solve any and all problems as they appear on our path. After that we’ll just have to see how far that takes us. But at least we are on the road.

We once heard an Indian proverb that went something along the lines of “When you’re going hunting, tell everyone you’re hunting for rhinoceros. Because if you come back empty-handed, people will just say that it wasn’t possible anyway.”

We will not hunt rhinoceros (or any other animal for that matter) but San Francisco is our rhinoceros. Unattainable. Yet so very alluring.