“I’m gonna go get some breakfast and maybe walk around a little bit.”
“Do you want some company?”
“Yeah, sure!”
And we were off. It was about eight in the morning in Rome, we had no plan, but we were walking. And being only our third day and having only an Italian map, it was safe to say we had no idea where we were in relation to anything else.
Nonetheless, if you’ve ever seen “Neature Walk – Episode 1,” you have a rough idea of what our morning was like. Around every corner, it seemed, was some pretty neat stuff. By complete accident, we stumbled across the site where Caesar was killed on the Ides of March, the Vittoriano, the Colosseum and countless other ruins, churches, historical sites and Panini shops.
How neat is that? That’s a beaut!
After some unknown number of “Ooh that’s neat!” exclamations, Nate made a comment that would end up setting the tone for our trip: “This morning has been 90 percent accident, 100 percent success.”
There are basically three ways to travel. First, do tons of research and planning and figure out all the cool things to do, where they are, and how to get back and forth between them. Second, find out a little bit about where you’re going, pretend like you know what you’re doing and try to act confident despite really having no idea what’s going on. And third, wing it. Decide to go somewhere and just go and see what happens when you get there.
Given that I didn’t put in the work to do number one, I was really happy to do number three. If you have absolutely know clue where you are or what’s out there, why pretend like you do? Instead, just get going. Who knows what you’ll find!
And what an applicable life lesson: ninety percent accident, 100 percent success.
How often do you find yourself in awesome situations by complete accident? Last fall I wrote a column about doing stuff on a whim, which I think is pretty similar. Although, that piece focused on major life events: going to college, choosing a job.
But this trip really got me thinking about the 90/100 rule in terms of small, everyday happenings.
The first time I went fishing in the western North Carolina mountains, we tried the French Broad River. We had no idea what we were doing or where we were, only that we were looking at water and hoping there were fish in it. After a few hours of futile effort, one of us got snagged on a big log and was trying to get the lure out. A man walking along the bank stopped to talk to us and found out that we wanted to trout fish. He recommended another river (that shall remain nameless) about 20 minutes away. Over the following afternoon and morning, the three of us caught about 65 trout in this small little river.
There’s a perfect example. If we hadn’t accidentally gone fishing on a river we had no business fishing on, and if we hadn’t gotten snagged on that log, that man may never have stopped to talk to us and give us his recommendation. And over the last year, we’ve taken three trips to that awesome little river we would otherwise have never known existed.
90 percent accident, 100 percent successful.
It’s often hard to tell what fruit the accident will bear, but patience and flexibility are catalysts for success. Like I said before, just get going and see what you find. I bet it’ll be a beaut!
Max Stayman is a Trinity senior. His column runs on alternate Fridays.
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