Thursday, December 18, 2008

Wagon Teamster

I was talking to my mother yesterday and she introduced a website to me. If you are interested in checking it out, it's http://www.wagonteamster.com/

Bob Skelding has a team of 4 horses that pull a wagon he built himself. He started in New Hampshire on August 16 on a journey down the road with his wagon and 4 pulling horses. 4 months later he is currently venturing through Indiana close to where I park my car every most evenings. That would be my house of course! So his horses are covering the pavement close to my home town.

So this horse gentleman is on an adventure that many people would love to take. Take a look at the website under the "FAQs" and "The Teamster" tab for more information on Bob and the commonly asked questions. I was very inspired reading about him and his stories. He has a very non-materialistic outlook on life and I agree with many points about his philosophy of life. Check out his philosophy of life (taken from the link off his website):

"Philosophy, everyone should have a little - here’s some of mine." - Bob Skelding
A. Rank your priorities in life and run your life according to the ranking. For example here’s my ranking:
1. Family
2. Friends
3. Wellbeing of my fellow man
4. Self Respect
5. Spirituality
6. Fun
7. Pursuit of knowledge
8. Comfort
9. Material Things
10. Money


I’ve met a lot of people up close on this trip and the ones that are normally the happiest and have the most fulfilled lives are those that place their family and friends above comfort and material things.
Different people will have different things on their list. You notice that I don’t even have a career on mine right now - that’s because I don’t have one at this time.
When there’s a freezing rain and a driving wind I tend to move things around a little and try to push comfort a little higher on the list - ha ha. The list shouldn’t be rigid, just a general guideline.

B. You get out of this life exactly what you put into it (more or less).
1. If you want to be loved, then love others.
2. If you want to be happy, then make others happy and try laughing at yourself sometime. Don’t take yourself too serious.
3. Most everything is a two way street.

C. Nearly every goal or ambition is achievable.
1. Set the goal and make up a list of steps necessary to achieve it. Don’t be lazy. Work the list through to completion.
2. Before you start, ask yourself, “can I make the sacrifices necessary to achieve the goal (there’s always sacrifices to be made.)
3. When you reach a roadblock, and you will, figure out what it takes to go around or over the roadblock - there’s always a way - be creative.
4. Never voice the negative. If you say to yourself, “I can’t do this because it cost too much money,” then you defeat yourself before you even start. These are just roadblocks, there are ways around.
5. Don’t put off your goals too long. You may get 50 years of good health as an adult - if you don’t take advantage of them, opportunity will slip away. Rather than saying, “maybe one day”, try saying, “today”.
6. When you fall on your butt, dust yourself off and push on. There’s an old saying, “you can’t stop a person that keeps on coming.”
7. Having said all this; it’s good to be spontaneous sometimes. Some of the best things in life happen completely unconsciously.

D. When dealing with other people:
1. Be polite and respectful - there’s no excuse for bad manners.
2. During conversations, try to listen at least ¾ of the time, and talk only ¼ of the time.
3. Remember that everyone has there own dreams, desires, experiences, pain and sorrow. Try to look at things through their shoes and empathize with them.
4. “Do onto others, as you would have them do onto you” - often quoted passage from the bible - there must be a reason for that.

E. Morals - Integrity, Honesty, Keeping Your Word, etc.
1. Without these, you have no self respect - enough said

F. Courage -
1. Often misunderstood word. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is having fear and pressing on to do the right thing in spite of your fear.

He is very inspirational and is a positive person from what I can see on the list here. That is the way I am about life and so maybe that is why I'm so drawn to the website and the journey of life he is on right now. It must be awesome to leave all the stress of life behind, take off down the road and not have any particular destination.

Some people may look at this and think he is crazy. I do not think he is crazy at all. He is courageous, brave and strong to set out on such an adventure like that. It's not the most ideal situation because it is different from the everyday routine of life. Most of us go to work each day, come home and do what needs to be done, go to bed and get up and start the next day again. So I admire him for stepping out of the daily grind and taking this giant leap of faith on such an adventure.

So here is to Bob and his team of horses DeeDee, Joyce, Dolly and Doc. I hope this adventure is a success for him. He is truly an inspiration to myself and many others who have heard his story. Maybe if I am lucky enough I'll be able to see this crew passing through my town. Good luck to you Bob and keep up the journey!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting link there girly! Thanks for sharing it!

Anonymous said...

I have linked your blog entry to the wagonteamster map page. Thx. :-)