About Scott INTRO to BIOs
"Autobiographies are when you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did." Will Rodger, 1930s era comedian
Table of Contents
quick links to Scott's Bio sections
I. Benchmark Boundary concept:
II. Biography INTRODUCTION:
A. Why read ANY biography?
B. Why read Travel BIOs?
C. Why try to plan your life?
D. Why I wrote my BIO for me?
E. Why I wrote my BIO for you?
III. About Scott's Decades: 1>>8:
A. Pre-teens: [jlk: AAgeG: pre-teen]
B.Teens: [jlk: AAgeG: teens]
C. 20s [jlk: AAgeG: 20s]
D. 30s. [jlk: AAgeG: 30s]
E. 40s [jlk: AAgeG: 40s]
F. 50s [jlk: AAgeG: 50s]
G. 60s+. [jlk: AAgeG: 60s]
II. Any BIOGRAPHY's Value
A. Why Read any BIO?
1) Deep dive into BIO's fundamental life choices; its twists & turns.
2) Evaluate BIO's life choices & decision-making vs. what you might have done or might do differently.
3) What emotional struggles did BIO encounter & how did they cope /resolve?
4) In the safety of your brain, vicariously test what your emotional responses might have been in similar circumstances. "What might you NOW do differently?"
5) In the safety of your brain, privately compare & evaluate your own self-worth, confidence, courage, and initiative..
6) Does this BIO challenge any preconceived opinions or prejudices about your career, family, or worldview?
Anything worth exploring further?
7) Do BIOs Inspire, redirect or guide us to pursue our goals, experiences, accomplishments, and failures differently?
8) Can BIOs offer practical knowledge & solutions to life’s future issues?
Above we dealt with the benefits of reading biographies in general, let's focus on the benefits of reading travel bios in particular
B. Why read Travel Bios?:
Above, we discussed how you might generally benefit from someone’s biography. Now let's focus on the specific value of travel bios to you in determining if, when and how you might want foreign travel.
Historically famous travel bios, I suspect, are of the explorers & adventurers: Marco Polo, Richard Burton, Columbus, Lewis & Clark, Charles Darwin, Dr David Livingstone, the Antarctic Explorers & a host more. Wow, what lives they lived!!!
Current travelers’ bios could be numerous, loaded with experiences, itineraries & fulfillment, and pleasure. But alas, most ordinary travelers’ bios will never be written, perhaps because they don’t write or are too busy traveling & just living their lives.
The few that are written, are often travel bloggers. These online BIOs are usually very short perhaps because the blogger believes you are vicariously visiting their site for the blogger’s up-to-the-moment thrills - not the past they escaped from.
While I offer a succinct bio on my Home page [[LINK. ], I also give you a Full Bio here with relevant questions that help you understand & evaluate my life and then compare it to how you might want to live yours.
Questions you might want to ask yourself at each stage of your life. Questions that might help you anticipate & plan your own life, particularly your travel ambitions, if you have any, at this point.
C. Why try to plan your life???
Quote: “I wish I had courage to live life true to myself, not life others expected of me.” Bronny Ware, Australian author, songwriter & motivational speaker best known for her writings about top deathbed regrets
Why bother’ trying to ‘design’ or control your life’s direction, why ‘plan’ life? 
9 Life Lessons - Tim Minchin UWA Address (comedy, but wise). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoEezZD71sc
We read books & watch movies without knowing how each character will end up. Why not do the same for ourselves? Why not just let it unfold naturally? You know, ‘Go with the flow.’
At 8, I can’t change my past. You, OTOH, have almost complete control over how you might want to try to plan/design the rest of your life.
Why do we plan/consider anything?
Why plan a night out, college & career, spouse & children, or foreign travel, if not to attempt to anticipate & plan a successful future? To try to ensure that we maximize the pleasure and benefit of this short time span called life.
Yet, constantly anticipating & planning your life’s choices is the most likely way to achieve success during your life and a sense of fulfillment & satisfaction at its end; …a life that will satisfy you when you are looking backwards at my age.
Most lives are a mix of successes & failures: foreseeable/unforeseen, permanent/recoverable, good/bad, easy/challenging. Success is never guaranteed, multiple failed attempts are probable.
There are no guarantees, of course, but the more we contemplate a furture, plan & try to direct our plan the higher the probability of success & a ‘life well lived.”
Life stages:
Most humans go through what some psychologists call 'life stages.' Most commonly they are youths (1 to 10),
teens (12 to 18), young adults (19 to 23), middle-aged adults & e) older (65+).
In our pre-teen & teen stages, our life is mainly controlled by others -- parents, neighbors, Boy Scouts, teachers, and peers - until we somewhat belligerently in our early teens begin to demand our own decision-making rights.
Yet, these ‘controlled’ years can dramatically influence & dictate our perception of ourselves, and our future.
After 18, we may legally take control except that others may also influence how we think and what we do.
The novel & movie characters, as well as many humans around us, are products of their good & bad decisions.
Often decisions are made in the heat of emotion (marry an alcoholic?), panic or convenience or, occasionally, those that are well thought out.
Critically, our earliest decisions & experiences, planned or not, may strongly determine our life’s path. Consider the ‘life-impact’ of good/bad parent, or being High School President, Eagle Boy Scout, or straight A’s sciences student, rebuilding an entire auto engine yourself, raising your siblings in a motherless home, a high school pregnancy, or forever ‘student loan’ debt?
The 'lucky' who always knew their path - horse trainers, doctors, etc. - compared with those of us who struggled to fulfill survival’s immediate needs — food, clothing & a place to sleep, etc.
Planning life is not an unrealistic option. Yet the apparent failure of many to do so lies all around us: lives un-directed, misdirected, hollow & UN-fulfilling.
Many, if not most, of us are not fortunate enough to have had a future vision. My only goal out of college was to survive; to eat, drink and sleeps.
Life is a one-shot deal, no sequel, no second chance, no reincarnation. “You get what you got, nothing more.”
Like a cereal bowl, we can fill it up with manure or chocolate syrup-covered chocolate ice cream. Each life has
the potential to be a mix of manure or chocolate ice cream.
Pondering & planning your life’s choices in advance including travel is the only way you are likely to achieve success and satisfaction at the end of your life;
…a life that will please you the most when you are looking backwards at my age.
Remember that your life may be similar to others, but it is also unique compared to others; as fulfilling as you make it. .....
D. Why I wrote my bio for me?
1. To flatter my ego? Why, who would really care? Few have cared before. I am not crying, just sayin’.😇
Quote: When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do, well, that's Memoirs. Will Rodgers (19th C comedian)
2. to relive & enjoy my travels by editing my 25+ years of videos.
I made my life’s choices over 5-6 decades. I have done all the travel I can do (cancer). I don’t intend to monetize my blog thru sponsors & advertisers because I don’t need the money.
“You only need to get rich once.” Jim Cramer, stock guru.
3. to give my YouTube channel viewers an insight into the motivations and drive forces of the voice of my more than 1000 short videos from all over the world.
(2) Why for you?
My current goal for you is twofold:
1) sharing my travel knowledge & experiences thru my blog & YouTube videos,
2) providing those who may not or cannot travel with an authentic vicariously travel experience thru my blog & YouTube Channel.
E. Why did I wrote my bio for you?
1. To give you the freedom to explore the intimate thoughts, experiences, failures & successes & opportunities of my life in case they can help you better understand your past, and anticipate your future particularly with regarding solo independent trave (SIT).
You’ll see my challenges, successes, failures, catastrophes & their consequences. …….,
Looking backward from my 60 & 70s obsession with travel, why didn't I START SIT traveling 20 years earlier?
2. My BIO may prompt you to evaluate MY fundamental life choices & the questions I did, did not, or should have asked myself.
3. Probe MY life’s reasoning, emotions, and levels of confidence & self-worth during my life’s stages.
4. Now, in the safety & privacy of your mind evaluate & test what your emotions, self-worth, confidence, emotional courage, initiative & issue solutions & limits might have been (or will be) in similar circumstances.
What might you have done better or differently?
You may be alarmed at my complete ignorance of what my life after college might be. After all that 'education', I had 'no clue!!'
5) These deeper insights may prompt or inspire a new vision for the 'balance of your life.' What will it be like?
At 84, I can’t change my past. You, OTOH, have almost complete control over how you might want to try to plan/design the rest of your life.
If you always wanted to be a Doctor, you already know the route. BUT, what if you have no idea what you want out of life.
Most default to marriage & children, BUT, 'Why?'AMD .... before or after college or career's stability?
6) Should you try to plan your life to some degree?
Why else do we go to college, focus on a career, and develop sports or hobby skills, if not to somehow foresee & plan our future’s time.
At 60 I didn't really plan to spend the next two decades, obsessively traveling. BUT once I started doing 1 trip/year & then 2/year and ... making them longer ... I was obsessed with # of countries I STILL wanted to 'see.'
It all started innocently enough at 3 or 4?
Manure
OR
chocolate ice cream
xxx
Wings & Anchors
& a few 'life' questions
To evaluate our questions & answers, we'll often presume some basic positive factors (Wings) and negative factors (Anchors).
These Wings & Anchors will frame our discussions.
Wings: are the personal attirbutes that most of us inherently have. 'Wings' will focus on our levels of positive basic human traits that influence our lives.
For example: we are born with unbridled curiosity, absence of human prejudices, & a 'thinking' brain that naturally seeks useful knowledge & experiences.
OTOH -----
Anchors: are negative 'baggage' factors that we accumularte once out of the womb. Often, at each age the intensity level of the "Anchors' varies. Identifying these 'Anchors' allows us to combat their negative effects.
For example, intellectual curioisty, creativity, imagination, etc. are suppressed by the public school system by about the 4th grade. (Ken Robinson, TED Talks videos on Youtube.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX78iKhInsc&t=514s
Recognizing that most of public school's regimented memorization & destructive testing is a fraud may help you restore damaged self-worth.
Recognizing that a university's diploma value may be a delusion may 1) prompt exploration of trade careers, 2) save you many $10,000s of life crippling student loans, & 3) free you to consider other, ignored, life choices
A few Life Questions: ... that I ask ... to prompt you:
1. Evaluate my life's decisons & effect - good or bad?
2. How you might have avoided my mistakes. if me?
3. How might you duplicate my good decisions?
4. How might you plan your life to maximize your success & minimize your mistakes knowing you will always make mistakes.
Biref Overview
My BIO is that of an ordinary person flailing out-of-adolescence into the unknown torturous survival mode of the real world. Un-like the historic heroic BIOs above, my BIO is probably devoid of great drama. Yet, it is NOT totally ordinary.
Against a troubled youth: kicked out of grade school, high school, nevertheless punctuated by notable achievements in teens until flailing thru my 18 year old Benchmark Boundary & college to adulthood with no direction.
Ultimately, major successes & failures (USAFA & expulsion), corporate world submission and my ultimate rejection, ultimately crawling out of the corporate quagmire onto my own turf: real estate, laundromat, garage door business, lawyer & high school teacher. Yet, foolish stock risks & losses (½ mill $ ), hard-won financial recoveries, bold adventures (solo Chilkoot Trail trek into Yukon River kayak), and random unforeseen calamities.
It wasn’t all normal.
Deeper nto Scott's Bios & Key Questions
Two suggestions:
1. About Scott's Decades: pe-teens thru 80s: you might compare my pre-teen & teen years your own as springboards, or not, for the 'rest of your life.
2. Review "Benchmark Boundary" section again particularly as you read thru your decade.
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