From the house where I’m staying, I can see the sound. I’m about 100 yards from the beach. This past weekend, following my nephew down there to be his steadying arm while he placed his two-year-old feet on logs like a novice on the balance beam, I realized how seldom I go down to the water, despite it being so close to home. Literally, so close to my house. But the next day, seated on the deck with my feet on the railing, the sun waning, and a book in my lap, I realized why: because it’s so fantastic when you walk out the door, it’s hard to understand the need to go the extra 100 yards.

The same is true while hiking. The trip around Mountain Lake, just under four miles of trail that crosses a damn, a number of bridges, has one manageable switchback and a million magnificent trees, is so pleasant, so wonderfully beautiful, familiar, and yummy smelling – in rain and sun – that it’s hard to bother with any other trail, say the one up to Twin Lakes, or down to Cascade Falls and across to Sunrise Rock.

I swore when I came back to the states that I would make everything familiar unfamiliar, do normal things anew, to keep my love affair with the world alive. Settling into my month of doing nothing, I’ve discovered just how difficult that is to do when the status quo is so damned blissful. But what are we missing by not pushing ourselves a little farther? How will we know, if we don’t try?

The hobgoblin of all that pleasantness is complacency. It’s not just that the deck is pleasant, or the trip around Mountain Lake, nice. They are each so much more wonderful than one can imagine, experiences that make one feel truly lucky to be a part of them, even when they have been done over and again for decades. It becomes a challenge to push for a different fantastic, blessed experience. When something seems so wonderful as it is, even when experienced over and over again, how do we convince ourselves that there is something out there, easily attainable, that is even MORE fantastic? If we raise the bar, we run the risk of not meeting it, even when all signs point to the hurdle being, in this circumstance, low. Do we have to feign dissatisfaction? Dare we risk disappointment by choosing to call even the good status-quo, not good enough?

I say yes, risk it. Risk it often. The world is capable of constant surprise, if we just give it the chance. The Mountain Lake trail is the best, but when the bridge was out for a month, I started going to Twin Lakes, and you know what? Even better. Better because different. Slightly longer, in the woods with a wider, more foot-sure path, and then the prize of the lakes at the end. A steady, gradual up, followed by a steady, gradual return. A different set of people hiking it.

A wider, more foot-sure path

Go to the beach. You can hear the waves from the house, but you can hear them better from the shore. You can smell the ions flushing through their crest, shallow and gentle though it may be. Relax into the repetitive motion of failing to skip a rock, and eventually, it will surprise you by bouncing up off the surface and jumping a few times before plopping down below.

Don’t judge. Don’t call yourself lazy, or complacent, or unwilling. It’s ok to appreciate all that you are, and all that you have, and still seek more. Because it isn’t more – it is different that we seek. This time, go THAT way, the way you haven’t gone before. Seek, and ye shall find your different.

Trunk across the path of life: a new opportunity to duck and keep going.