My Life Adventure
My Life Adventure
Life through COVID was a change – it presented me with opportunities and challenges. I’ve tried a new format of of showing my life throughout these times: Story Maps: https://storymap.knightlab.com/. See my test Story Map below:
One of the main things I wanted to get out of creating a blog was a way to autobiograph-ise my life. I like dates, timestamps and visuals – so I went in search of something of the Timeline variety to record, remember and relive my life. After all, my biggest fear is to look back on my life and regret not doing enough.
I stumbled upon an amazing, innovative site Knightlab which is all free to use their templates on Storytelling – Timelines and Storylines being my 2 favourites.
Hours upon hours of my time went into the creation of this:
Without further adieu, the Timeline of Ross Michell until the end of 2020 (as of time of writing).
Again, I would strongly recommend everyone to find your own way to record, remember and relive your own life. This last few weeks has been a saviour with COVID lockdowns coming back into Sydney, it has helped me reconnect with people and myself looking back on these memories and learnings.
“…After all, these are not the memoirs of an empress, nor of a queen. These are memoirs of another kind.” – Memoirs of a Geisha
I never had planned to build a website let alone do it. Every year (for the last maybe 10 years) I’ve set my goals or as most people know them new years resolutions within the start of January. This year was like any other where i had them split into long and short.
Placeholder link – writing goals
On there for 2021 was the usual get fit, Run this, start that, etc. Only after I started chasing on of them – running events did my goal expand into this beast of starting a website and blog.
See the quote above from one of my favourite Anime: Hunter x Hunter 2011. “You should enjoy the little detours to the fullest. Because that’s where you’ll find the things more important than what you want”. I understand this as, even though you may have goals, sometimes the side tracks are where you really find meaning to the goals.
It all came about as I was training for my link: 50k ultra first lumberjack, where mid-way into a 40K run I thought this is amazing, I want to:
1. Notes for my own records
2. Share my learnings with a wider audience and hope to inspire
For me personally, when you’re out there running for up to 6 hours alone with a flat set of earphones, you have a lot of time to thing (Link to: Japan Bike Tour). So many things are going through your mind but there’s no way to write them all down.
For me personally, I want to be able to look back at my life and easily see what I’ve done. Not dissimilar to a diary or scrapbook but in a digital and interactive format. I want to see my triumphs, failures and stagnations. Learn from this and go forward.
Leading into the 2nd part, when listing all of these learning, why not share the learnings I have with a wider audience. I always thought things like the school curriculum and life lessons you learn to be almost irrelevant in shaping someone into a future success. Hopefully my way of living “live the life you want to live / live your own life / You are accountable for your own happiness” will inspire others to seek better in their own lives. My wife has taken this own board and just (as of 20/04/2021) posted her newest PB for a park run 29 minutes which she largely attributes to my enthusiasm for running and other hobbies motivating her to get out there.
Finding this website as a detour on my life path has inspired me to further mature and pass on whatever wisdom I can.