As you would expect, the adventure travel industry has been all but shut down since the appearance of COVID in the spring of 2020. For the first year or so, the world essentially freaked out, crawled inside itself, and hid under the covers.

Here we are two years later. Storms of political infighting have raged across our countries, pitting neighbor against neighbor over questions of masking and vaccinations, schooling, and what types of businesses are necessary, and which aren’t. The vaccines that we were promised would solve this nightmare and put everything back to normal have been created and distributed to millions across the planet, but the promise has fallen short.

People are still afraid and COVID still exists.

Our ‘why’ has changed

This thing has given me more than enough opportunity to pause and reflect about why Holly and I started Hobnail Trekking Company back in 2017. I’ll be totally honest with you; the origin of Hobnail was purely selfish. We wanted to fulfill a bucket-list dream of hiking to Everest Base Camp and we knew that if we could talk a few others into going with us, the trip would be more affordable. This led to the idea of launching a company which, at the time, was more of a fun project than anything else.

But after our momentous inaugural trip in 2018 — followed by several other treks to EBC undertaken by total strangers that booked through us — things changed. Speaking for myself here — and I think Holly will say the same — I realized that facilitating someone else’s bucket list dream was as much a blessing for me as it was for them. It was amazing. Helping someone else achieve a life-long ambition became almost addictive.

But after COVID shut all of this down and millions of people died much sooner than they expected in a way they never anticipated, the concept of what Holly and I were doing took on much greater meaning on a personal level.

No guarantees

In stark terms, I realized that whether you are 20 or 70, life is short. It doesn’t come with a guarantee of longevity. Whether by some insidious, previously unheard-of virus or by a car accident on the way to Kroger, our lives can be taken away at any time, at any age, and at any level of health.

I don’t say this to frighten you. I say this because I believe that far too many of us spend the majority of our time on Earth waiting for conditions to be perfect before we take the leap outside our comfort zones to do something extraordinary.

One of the easiest examples of this is parenthood. I often hear people say that they are waiting for the “right time” to have children, as if having a lot of money and free time will make you a better mom or dad.

Trust me, I know. We’ve got three kids and we’ve NEVER had lots of free time or money.

People also wait for that mythical “right time” to start a side business. Or to visit the Grand Canyon. Or to forgive a family member for a past injustice. Or to finally replace that old refrigerator that lost its interior lighting several years ago and requires a flashlight to locate a stick of butter. (If this sounds oddly specific, it’s because it’s true and it exists in my house.)

The “right time” will never appear on a calendar or a clock face for the simple reason that it doesn’t exist.

Twilight Zone time

COVID has created a very odd situation, one that Rod Serling could’ve easily made into a great episode of “The Twilight Zone,” and here it is: The governments of the world have required us to put our businesses, schooling, traveling, hopes, and dreams into some strange cryogenic suspension, but the earth still stubbornly orbits around the sun. Like a service call to Comcast, we are placed on perpetual hold, waiting for life to return to what it was prior to 2020 as we continue to age. That hasn’t been paused.

Every minute that passes takes us closer to the end of our precious time on Earth, whenever that may be. In many cases (I’d even say most cases), we are getting fatter, more unhealthy, more anxious, and more depressed than we were before.

Meanwhile, fully vaccinated and boostered people continue to catch the virus, and the overwhelming majority of these folks don’t die. In fact, most either don’t even know they’ve caught it or have symptoms akin to a cold or the flu.

What does all this mean? From my perspective, it suggests that we have paused our lives indefinitely to live in fear of something that will probably never happen, and those are months and years we will never get back.

Yeah, but…

At this point, you may be thinking, “Yeah, yeah, he’s just saying all of this because he owns an adventure travel company.”

OK, yes. It’s true that our company relies on people traveling. But if you know me personally, you know that I’ve spent my entire life pursuing outrageous careers and goals that required me to make a decision and then GO, starting with becoming a professional musician at age 19. For the first several months of my career in music, I performed a solo acoustic set in bars and restaurants by playing the same 20 Jimmy Buffett songs over and over, at least three times every night. (People generally got too drunk to notice.) Had I waited until the perfect time to begin this career — a well-rounded set of several hundred cover tunes of various genres, good equipment, and experience as a performer — the following 15 years of wonderful memories and experiences would’ve never ever happened.

And how about launching a Himalayan trekking company? When is there ever a “right time” for a country boy from the mountains of North Carolina to do that?

Whether it’s becoming a musician, starting a new business, or traveling to some exotic locale to undertake a bucket-list adventure, I urge you to stop waiting! The “right time” will never arrive; it’s up to you to MAKE it right. The very last thing you want is to look back over your life with regret over something you could’ve changed.

The time to make memories is now. Do what you need to do to be safe, tell COVID to stick it where the sun don’t shine, and live your life!