When I am on a long journey I know where I am, where I am going and what I am doing with my life. Ask a random selection of normal people back in the real world, “what are you doing with your life?” and you won’t get many coherent answers. Back home I often find myself tackling the most important project I will ever have (my life) with an alarming lack of focus, drive, ambition or panic at the prospect of its impending non-negotiable deadline.

So I enjoy having the sense of purpose you have on a journey. Seeing it as a ‘quest’ is perhaps grandiloquent. But, even though it’s only small, it is a quest. I’mm taking a difficult journey, facing obstacles and doubt, in search of a goal. The essence is the same whether it is a small journey like mine or the Odyssey.

The pointlessness of a quest does not matter either. Life on my quest is clear-cut, with definite standards of success, achievement and failure. I have a goal. If I fail it will be my fault: I will be too weak mentally or physically, or insufficiently brave.

These are painful things to see in myself, though it is important to be able to acknowledge them. However the flip side is that if I succeed in my quest it will be because of me. I’mll feel proud of that.

This text is an extract from There Are Other Rivers, available as a giant mappazine or a free Kindle sample.