In 1997, at the age of 27 I enjoyed one of the best years of my life. Among other things, I backpacked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. All 2,175 miles of it over six months. At that time of my life, I was free of material weight, financial weight, and emotional weight. And at all times I was safe, secure, and happy. My total income in 1997 was $972.

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Fast forward 12 years later to March 2009 where my life looks and feels very different. I have allowed an enormous amount of clutter to enter my life, way too much for me to maintain. I am weighed down materially, financially, and emotionally. I feel unsafe, insecure, and unhappy and it is affecting every aspect of my life. I just lost a job I did not expect to lose, my wife and I are proceeding through a divorce, my home might soon no longer be mine, and my “excellent 740 credit rating” is volatile, to say the least.

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I am not modeling what I want my kids to learn from their father. I am not modeling what I learned from my father.

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My children need to know they can make choices that allow them to be free to experience the world with joy. I want to inspire them to fully utilize their imaginations and be grateful for what the world offers in return. I was there once, but I lost my way because I traded my imagination for an archaic, unoriginal belief system around the virtue of responsibility. I allowed myself to believe that “responsibility” meant “self-sacrifice.” And since at the time I was free and living simply, I sacrificed what I had: my freedom and my soul. I convinced myself that all of this was good, I was doing right by others, I was “a man of virtue.”

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But I stopped focusing on doing the things I loved. I entered what most people called the “real world” and I got a “real job.” I did okay but not great. I’ve had good times and am surrounded by great people, but I am ripping them off because I am not the man I can be. I have not been honoring the voice of my soul.

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So I am going to start “enlightening my load” and I am going to document it through this online journal, initially by reliving my 1997 trip on the Appalachian Trail. Every journal entry from March 20 to September 29. And then I’ll work toward adding my 1995, 22-day kayaking trip through Grand Canyon.

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Where it goes from there, we shall see.