4 Mile Beach

This is definitely one of nature’s untouched beauties in the tropical far north. And a definite highlight for anyone visiting Port Douglas.

The 4 mile beach, as it’s name would suggest, stretches for 4 miles. And walking along the water’s edge brings about a sense of peace and serenity that I think we could all use in our lives, every so often. In our daily bustle, many, heck even I don’t take the time to really focus on what truly matters. As you get older, days turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years and before you know it, you’re life is punctuated with major holidays or public holidays. You get this sense of looking forward to the weekend, only to watch it pass you by so quickly and you dread another week ahead. Whilst I love my job, I still get the sense that I get lost during the week (in my work) and on the weekend (with all the other things).

So what is the antidote? I don’t have all the answers, but I am looking at ways to ensure I truly enjoy each and every day. You see, after some time, we all start to realise, that our time on this planet is limited. Often, we do not realise, either by living each day so deeply or sometimes in the past (regretting or reminiscing events) or even looking to the future (working for a some day that might never eventuate…almost like hoping that “once” you get what [insert goal name here], you will be better off.). Maybe it’s the death in the family that makes you re-evaluate things. But then once again, life takes you back into the high and lows of everyday and soon we forget. In all honesty, you sometimes forget to live whilst you are living. I especially love the Dalai Lama’s quote on humanity and I think it applies here quite aptly.

“What suprises you most about man? He works so hard to succeed, that he sacrifices life in order to get money. Then he sacrifices his money to restore his health. Then he goes about recouping those losses that he again loses… and in his quest to learn about life, he ends up dying having never really lived” (get actual quote).

My walk on the beach, was exactly what I needed. A lot of my friends know me as the high achiever, and to be honest, I had come off a long string of achieving most of my life goals. Yes. LIFE goals. I had done all I wanted to do (as a single person). So the question now became “Now what?”. And to be honest, it was a very scary thought. What do you do, when you have no more goals? What happens once you’ve achieved everything you wanted in life? Set more goals? And then what? It was a quest – this beach. A quest to answer this deeper question. I think it’s something we should all ask ourselves from to time. Even travel. Why do we spend so much time – planning, organising, researching flights, accomadation and then we are willing to hop onto a plane, go somewhere to see the sights and absorb things? But then we take a gazillion photographs and come back to show those photos to people. But what has it actually achieved? Who are those photos for? Did you really spend all that money to go somewhere just so that you can say that you’ve been there? And after all this, you are just suppose to lay down and die? We are not going to live forever. So what are we going to do? Keep hitting the next goal? It’s a very interesting question. And quite scary.

What helped me out here was Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I did in fact, start with the end in mind. You see once you know what your eulogy is going to say, you have a goal to work towards. A big goal post, but then you have a sense of direction. And a legacy in fact cannot be controlled by you. If anything, it usually dies out within a few generations. You must realise, that not all of us can be world famous. That at least you need to make your peace with. But what this life gives us, is the opportunity to make this world a better place for us having been in it. If each of us made a difference, a positive difference in the lives of our families and friends, think how much better this world would be. It really would be a world without strangers.

It’s funny. I walked along that beach close to a year ago and the memories of walking down that beach is still so vivid in my mind. I remember the thoughts I had walking down different sections – looking back and realising that back was literally in the past and nothing can be done about it. It’s now a story that you can tell and it’s your choice as to how you tell it. The future? Hasn’t even happened. And then the waves lapped gently around my feet and I realised. If you’re not moving, you’re sinking. And no matter what you do. The waves of life will wash it all away. Like my grandma used to tell me “This too shall pass”. Right then, the subtle salty sea breeze reminded me of how good life is. Right now. In this very moment.

Yeah, I know. It’s a little bit profound for a travel and enjoy yourself kind of blog. I guess I want to keep you guys a little grounded and a little inspired to be a better version of yourselves. Please don’t use travel as an excuse to run away. Life is amazing where you are. And if it isn’t, then perhaps you need to change it up and see what kind of difference you can make. To borrow from Viktor Frankl – “responsibility = response + ability” It comes down to how we choose to respond to the situations around us. This is by no means some kum-ba-ya post about positive thinking either. But perhaps a dash of positivity is what you need. Get back up and do it again. Just keep going. Like th Johnnie Walker advertisement would say – “Keep Walking”.

Ironically, the 4 mile beach, is the one place that I have taken the least amount of photographs. And yet this post is over a 1000 words long.

Thank you my dear readers. You keep me coming back for more and I promise to be more interactive with you. It is because of you, my family and my friends, that I strive to be a better version of myself. Thank you for the push and thank you for your support. If you would like to say hello – feel free to drop me a line!