The Guide: to a fulfilling summer

What did you do with your summer? In early June I landed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ready, once again, for a few months leading hiking and canoeing trips in the back […]


What did you do with your summer? In early June I landed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ready, once again, for a few months leading hiking and canoeing trips in the back country of the northern woods and Southern Ontario. Paul Bunyan country. I was about to enter a world far removed from the comparatively bustling streets of St. Andrews. 

Time moved slowly there, but still I felt as though it was quickly running out. Half-way through University, and I was foregoing the process of internships. My CV, already thin with professional experience, would need to wait another year before I could feed it with mind-numbing hours of lower level office work. “Oh well,” I thought, “there’s always next summer” and I gripped my backpack tight and moved forward, unsure if my choice to avoid the ‘real world’ for another year was going to push my life forward at all. 

Three months later I am sitting by the rage of a roaring fire, the flames waltzing in and out of my field of vision. It is the last night of a fourteen day trip through Quetico Provincial Park and we are reflecting on our exploits of the last two weeks. The six young men that my friend, Noah, and I had been leading are laughing, remembering, and still active enough to ensure more memories are made. This was our last trip of the summer. My body was sore from all the weight it had bore and my mind tired from all of the days of leading and the storms narrowly avoided. The pain was welcome, however, as every ache came with a moment that will forever be burned into my mind. Over the past few months I had seen, tasted, listened, spoke, read and discovered things that, to me, will always be a reminder of how lucky I was to have pressed pause on my life for those sweet summer months. I thought back to the streets of St. Andrews and the blur of student life. I was excited to go back. To get to work again and continue moving forward towards a scarily opaque goal.

No worries though, after this summer I am in no rush. Because the cold, hard truth is that we have only so many years on this planet. Too few years to succumb completely to the urban promise that if we just get through the day that we may live a fulfilling life tomorrow. I want to live now, just as I do every time I launch my boat into canoe country, or listen to the swells of the clay-stained waters kissing the north shore of Lake Superior. I completely understand the importance of sacrificing the Here and Now to invest in one’s future; this is self evident as I am writing to you as a student at University. But summer is my time. My time to ensure that I live a few days so beautiful that they are worth remembering. My time to ensure that if I die before I wake, I leave this earth having known moments of absolute certainty: certainty that my youth is being as well respected as my future, certainty that I am a better person than I was the moment before, and certainty that I am settling for no less, with my time, than personal fulfillment.  

Don’t get me wrong. I do not believe for a second that my way is the only way to have a fulfilling summer. Or even that my definition of fulfilling is the only one. What I am suggesting to you is that perhaps summer should be a time when you forget about the progress of your life and focus on its depth. Summer is a time when we should prepare not for our retirement, but for a mid life crisis; when we should gain life experience and not just work experience. But please don’t worry, there is always next summer.