How has Overlanding made you a better person?

[MOAK]

We go out just the two of us most trips. The self reliance and confidence that builds up has started bleeding into other areas of my life. Being brave and trying things i never have. Whether its customizing a car, cooking something ive never tried, growing vegetables and flowers. It has helped to be bold, fearless, and undeniable. I always had low self esteem and have been called a doormat, but all that has been changing as i feel like i am coming out of a shell that i built (with the help of our sick culture)
Plus meeting people that understand the drive to explore is heartening because so far we always click, despite our backgrounds and lifestyles. I get to hang out with a great group of OB people. A NASA scientist, computer programmer, a truck driver, another kitchen guy like me.
I love places that try to bring people together like here, rather than try to divide us like tv news and politics.
'Politics is hollywood for ugly people' - Clyde Lewis

you hit the nail on the head - "sick culture". I and my wife refuse to live in fear. This sick culture has everyone living in fear, at least anyone that falls victim to it. When I was 6 or 7 years old we were told to go out and play. We not only explored our own 25 acre property but we continued on out through the woods, beyond and into small towns and neighborhoods. By the time I was 10 I had all the fenders stripped off of my "Huffy" bicycle and was riding on paths back through the woods. It was all "unsupervised" play. We learned to live, we did what was natural, we explored. My wife was grew up the same way, ie, go out and play! We had no fear and we never have. However, since the late 70s the "fear factor" has been instilled in our society. Suddenly supervised play and hovering parents became the new normal. We now have an entire society living in fear of the proverbial boogey man.

Even in the overlanding community most folks are "afraid" to go out alone. Don't even get me started on the over-abundance of navigation gear. Hey, I use google maps on my phone, to find addresses and go to them, but that's it. I most always shut it off when off pavement and rely solely on "seat of the pants" navigation combined with paper maps. We just don't need to know where we are exactly at every moment. When I was riding the huffy through the woods I just kept riding. Did I ever get lost? Yea a few times, but always managed to tap into our instinctual navigation system and find my way home, only to discover that I was never really lost. All the gizmology navigation systems that people surround themselves with only serve to shield us from our natural instincts. Just what is everyone afraid of? Getting lost? Really? Have we ever been lost while overlanding in our truck? Misplaced maybe, but never lost, not here in the lower 48. My father-in-law has a 40 ft sail boat. A couple of decades ago he bought a ton of navigation gizmology which made his navigating a lot easier, but it removed him from the art of navigating using compass, and charts. When his system crashed, which it often did, he still knew how to pull out the charts and navigate the old fashioned way. How many modern overlanders can say this? What has overlanding done for me? Ha. I could write a book on that subject, but one thing for sure, It has continued to hone the instinctual navigation skills that I discovered back when I was 10 years old.

 

[JoelIII]

I suppose I'm slightly more of an environmentalist if you want to call it that. I've always cleaned up my area when out fishing, camping or exploring an area, now I find myself going on more short trips just to look for trash cause I know theirs plenty of it everywhere you look.