This is me
There are many examples of people that have decided to go on a great journey of discovery. They have sailed boats through uncharted waters, climbed to the most hostile mountain tops, dragged sleds through snow and ice, walked, cycled or swum vast distances sometimes in company but often quite alone. They often return home with colourful stories and pictures, write a book and gain notoriety. The media says ‘They’ve had the adventure of a lifetime’. Whilst reading these books, full of hardship, isolation, deliverance and relief as they are, one question keeps bubbling up at the back of my mind. Isn’t the whole title thing wrong? Surely you should read it the other way around. It shouldn’t be called ‘The adventure of a lifetime’ but rather ‘The lifetime of an adventure’. They go on an adventure, have an adventure and finish an adventure. The eternal cycle of Birth, life and death. Once it’s over it’s over. Time to move on and become re-socialised, re-urbanised.
I find this tragic and it spoils my enjoyment of their tales. I look at my own life and see it as one continuous adventure, a never ending journey of discovery. Surely that is what is meant by ‘The adventure of a lifetime’. A lifetime jam packed from start to finish with highs and lows, hardship, trials, tribulations and irony. A lifetime that is an adventure in itself. I can’t help thinking that maybe that is an even better kind of story to tell.
Burger’n’Fries is my story. Everything I write about is true. Every event really happened. The one compromise I have made for readability is that it is not always in strict chronological order. I don’t want this to simply be ‘A history of me’. I want it to catalogue the experiences of my life so that we can learn from them. In the words of a successful investor ‘My good decisions come from experience, my experience comes from my bad decisions.’