The past 3 years or so I've been telling myself and anyone within earshot that I want to explore - travel the US and beyond. Most people then ask, "where do you wanna go?" to which I reply, "I dunno, anywhere I guess." I always follow up on that thought by saying, "I'd love to just be offered a job somewhere random so the decision would be made for me and then I can see how I like it." Although that is genuinely what I've been waiting for, I don't think I ever fully believed it would happen. Now it has.
Earlier this year I read Chris Guillebeau's "The Happiness of Pursuit" and my desire to explore has never been greater. In this book, Guillebeau advocates for a life that makes adventure a priority and offers his advice on how to design and complete "quests", as he calls them, that promote growth and are fulfilling. He includes stories from people all over the world who embarked on their own unique quests ranging from identifying as many bird species as possible to I had already developed an itch to explore (hence why I bought his book), but was reluctant to do so as I had no idea where to start, I feared the unknown, and I was am broke.
Enter the Ulman Foundation. On June 27th my attention was atypically redirected from a game of Fifa to a GroupMe notification. It was from the president of the Red Cross Club at UMD, sharing a volunteer opportunity that he thought members may be interested in. I read it through and was left in a bit of disbelief as it outlined exactly what I wanted and needed to commit to an adventure. After rereading the message a couple times I made my way to the Ulman Foundation website and the 4k For Cancer page after that. My dubiety subsided and I smiled from ear to ear as I typed up an email to see how I could get involved. The next day I joined a phone call to learn more specifics and logistics about what I'd be doing, and the day after that I submitted my registration to join the 2023 team.
For the next 10 months I'll be working to fundraise $5,000 in support of the Ulman Foundation and their mission to ensure no young adult faces cancer alone. Then, 10 days after I graduate college, I'll be setting off for San Francisco... on a bike. Amazing, right? Even more amazing is the fact that I'll have the support of the foundation and all the other beautiful guys and gals who will be riding alongside me. Each day we'll cycle 50-120 miles in dedication to a young adult with cancer to show them they aren't alone. During our travels we will meet new friends when we stop at churches, families, schools, and community groups for food and a place to sleep; to thank the gracious communities who host us, we will partake in community service efforts like visiting patients and survivors, delivering chemo bags and scholarships, and attending community dinners.
Believe it or not, I had come up with the idea that I wanted to cycle across the US a while ago. Like many ambitious ideas, it got buried underneath other responsibilities and distractions but resurfaced after reading about a bikepacker (kinda like a mix between backpacking and road tripping) who travelled from England to Turkey in Guillebeau's book. I once again became motivated to travel and I wanted to do it on a bike because I simply love biking, but I also wanted to be a bit different and explore our country in a more intimate way. I thought of it as a way to protest against the overuse of fossil fuels -- I'd be able to connect with all kinds of people along the way and maybe inspire them to consider their own place in the climate crisis. I also like to believe that all of us are capable of doing good and by traveling on a bicycle across America, I'll get firsthand experience of the kindness and selflessness of others.
It's hard to articulate how perfect this endeavor is for me. It's an irresistible collision of all my most valued interests; adventure, exercise (particularly outdoors), compassion, and service. I've known that helping others would be a large part of my life for the past few years, and I become more and more invested in doing exactly that every day. Somehow our species has become one dominated by greed, selfishness, and apathy when it should be centered around compassion, community, and empathy. Luckily, we're a species capable of great change. I hope to be a part of a global movement in making compassion cool again -- I'm still figuring out where I best fit in this puzzle, but riding for the Ulman Foundation seems like the perfect place to start. My fundraising efforts directly support young adults with cancer and I'll be able to help spread compassion within my communities in Easton and College Park, and in tons of new communities across America. Lastly, as someone who's never been more than a 12 hour drive from Maryland, getting to see the country is a pretty awesome bonus.
For anyone who has made it this far into the post, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! This blog will serve mainly as a more detailed log of my journey leading up to departure all the way through arrival in San Francisco. I plan to post a new entry at least once a month with updates about my training and fundraising as well as personal reflections on the whole process and life in general (my next post will probably be a brief biography for anyone interested in knowing a bit more about me). I'll also be posting more brief updates on social media which I will link below. If you'd like to support me and the Ulman Foundation, please visit my fundraising page to donate and/or share my mission with friends and family. Above all, I urge you to live every day with compassion for all life on Earth. Thank you.
Happily,
Hayden
Instagram: @happily.hayden
Facebook: Hayden Kessinger
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