The single thought that changed my life. Forever.

June – Nov 2010

Here I was in a cushy corporate job doing nothing relevant to what I had studied for four years at college. Life was on a monotonous high as is with every IT job. My daily routine included nothing except work, eat and sleep. Weekends were wasted and the thought of not doing anything else in life was pricking me. The time between lying down and sleeping is when we think of all that we haven’t done and that seemed to grow longer with each day.

One fine day while skimming through the news paper, an article on Chennai cycling club caught my attention. It talked about cycling from Chennai to Mahabs. I looked up their club online and found that they organized long distance trips on cycles. It was then this thought struck me. If there was a Chennai cycling club, why not a trekking club? Excitedly, I googled Chennai Trekking Club and the first link took me to their group. Little did I know then that this single thought would turn my life around.

Once into the group, I saw the various treks that they had organized and I was brimming with excitement. It was like a totally different world out there. The photos put up made me stare in awe at the beauty of nature and the challenges that it posed. I wasted no time in registering. Treks were being organized every weekend and my mail box was getting flooded with invites. I was a bit apprehensive in joining. I wasn’t too sure if I could do it. The thought of wandering around in a forest, though exciting, scared me. It was then I received this invite from Peter in October 2010. It was an open for all trek in the Nagari range. It had 4 levels and it gave us to opportunity to trek as much as we could. This was my first tryst with the mountains. I haven’t looked back since then.

The past 3 years have been the most wonderful journey in my life so far. The numerous treks that I have done have taught me much more than what I had learned in the past 20 years.

This independence day, it feels great to be writing down the single thought that made me come out of my comfort zone, the single thought which has made me a better person and the single thought that has given me the confidence to do what others think impossible.