“Maybe it is because I am not one to get very excited, but I swear, if I hear another person talking about how ‘real’ this is starting to feel or how excited they are, I will blow (well not really… More like have a mental rant about how annoying I find it). It’s not that I have negative personal feelings towards the trip, it is just that after 27 hours of hearing about their excitement, I’ve kinda had enough.” (18/07/2015)

Growing up there were many things that I struggled to understand and engage in, and excitement was one of them. The extract from above was taken from the start of the journal I kept whilst on my expedition in Borneo. It was an amazing trip and I had a great time. Although my tone of writing may appear to the contrary, I was really looking forward to the trip, I just felt like there wasn’t a need to tell the others around me every few minutes.

For a long time, I perceived the idea of excitement to be synonymous with jumping up and down, squealing and just being overly hyperactive. As someone who was tired roughly 90% of the time, my energy stores were limited so I reserved them for the important things in life (e.g. binge-watching TV shows, debating over the ranking of awesomeness amongst my friends*, procrastinating school work, being an embarrassing older sister etc.). I would rather quietly ‘look forward’ to events and activities than expel my energy reserves screaming about how I couldn’t wait to go hiking through the jungles to a bunch of apathetic bystanders. It just wasn’t in my nature and seemed like unnecessary effort.

Another reason that I always took caution when it came to excitement was because, with excitement comes expectation, and with expectation comes the risk of disappointment. When you are eager to do something, it is usually because you have a positive expectation for it. For example, the excited people travelling with me to Borneo probably boarded the plane expecting to be taken to a faraway country, where they would immerse themselves in a new culture, enjoy themselves and return with a nice tan. However, with these hopes came the risk of the reality not living up to the expectation, which would lead to disappointment. Like most people, I’m not a fan of disappointment; so, I aimed to enter every situation with no expectations, therefore, every experience I had would exceed them. There were many flaws in this system for two key reasons.

Firstly, expectation is something that we can’t completely control. We all naturally form images and ideas in our heads about our lives and what we see around us whether we like it or not. Secondly, disappointment is inevitable. Sometimes it can be linked with setting your sights too high, but a lot of the time it is out of our control.

Trying to enter situations with no expectations was just a futile attempt at self-preservation. It prevented me from truly appreciating the importance of excitement in life and its motivating power.

Excitement is a driving force. It’s an eager enthusiasm that motivates action. This could be to travel, to undergo a project or simply make it through an academic year. Usually, it’s not something that drains you of energy, but rather it helps you push through the challenging times. It can be infectious and help you engage with others, and it’s something that makes life interesting.

I’m not going to lie, during my Borneo trip the symptoms of excitement were a real cause of headaches (I shall never understand the need for girls to squeal). However, it was people’s enthusiasm and excitement for what was to come that kept us moving when we were doing 5 km hikes that turned out to be 16 km (people’s eagerness to have a shower really helped keep the pace up). Our excitement led to our enjoyment of the trip, and what a trip it was. In fact, we enjoyed the trip to the point where we foolishly decided to camp on a beach island with 3 wild boars and some massive lizards as company; but that is a story for another day.

“Focus on the excitement and it will lead you through the obstacles”

– Piya Sorcar

* It goes without saying that I was ranked #1 on the awesomeness scale