Learning to Yield
Something I've noticed recently is that the majority of road signs here in New Zealand are 'Give Way' signs — or what we, in the States, call a 'Yield.'
Meaning, you do not have the right of way.
That which is in flow, continues. And if you time it right, you too can become a part of that flow.
I've been staring at that sign for months. Not the literal one — though I see it every time I drive — but the one God keeps putting in front of me.
Because for the last 5 or 6 months, I have been lost. I have both successfully failed at chasing brand partnerships, and I have written short essays for Instagram with less thought to their depth or purpose and more time spent thinking about how to make each individual opening sentence more viral instead of more better.
And, shockingly, what I have found has been… emptiness.
This all began as I set off for the Arctic Circle in August. On what should have been — easily could have been — the most mind blowing, jaw dropping, epic adventure of my life, I found myself not enamored, but… overwhelmed. Primarily overwhelmed by some innate desire to perform; to maintain a public perception; to grow (but only in the most vapid ways possible.)
If I jog my memory, this was most prominent when my then-acquaintance Harrison Schoen's (@harry.schoen) motorbike blew up in the Arctic Circle.
We knew each other through meeting at Overland Expo, where many creators in the sort of ‘American Outdoor Scene’ gather, but never really kept in touch.
But he was stranded, and he knew I was somewhere nearby.
As we soon learned, ‘somewhere nearby’ means something different that far North: I was 20 hours south and 3 border crossings away —
Canadian > American > Canadian, away.
Unable to deny an adventure, I said ‘sure, I’ll wake up at 4:30 and drive through the night to come get ya.”
I thought the mission I was about to embark on was to help Harrison.
I thought I might get some good content out of it too, selfishly.
What I now see about through that long drive, and the 10 days getting him to an airport after, is that it was actually about recentering me.
Because once I got that call, my trip to the Arctic was commandeered.
Not by a broken bike or by a desire to help, but by the Lord Himself.
Not a second that followed went to the plan I had set.
Everything I had really planned on doing — except for swimming in the Arctic Ocean — went out the window.
And in that vulnerable situation, I had no choice but to submit.
Submit.
“Submission means I have to give up my right to..."
I’m in Wellington, the capital, for most of my time over here in New Zealand. Not necessarily by choice — though the city is quite pleasant and the suburbs do remind me of home — but rather because my fiancé’s family is from here.
Something I’ve noticed recently is that the majority of road signs here are ‘Give Way’ signs — or what we, in the States, call a ‘Yield.’
Meaning, you do not have the right of way.
That which is in flow, continues. And if you time it right, you too can become a part of that flow.
So much of my life has been lived on a whim, never quite caring for those specific notices.
When you’re in your early 20s, work a blue collar job, and your whole shebang is traveling and writing in your free time, there’s not that much that has control over you.
In fact, how many times have you read something from me talking about freedom?
The freedom in a two lane highway, or the freedom of sleeping wherever you want, or the freedom to just get up and go all come to mind.
But what I’ve started to learn, especially as I have entered into what will soon become a marriage, is that this notion of freedom can actually be a bit destructive.
As the misattributed adage goes,
“And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?”
In portions of the last 5 years pursuing this mission, I have routinely fallen on either side of that question. Though should you have asked me 5 months ago, I would have said freedom.
Absolute freedom is looking at the calendar for August, in July, and saying, “Ok, on August 20th I am driving to the Arctic Circle.”
Absolute freedom is driving away on August 20th, and not having an answer when your parent's neighbors ask when you plan on returning.
Absolute freedom actually means — "I am in control."
Yet there could not be any more deluded thought than that.
Have you or I ever been in control?
Was I in control when my father got diagnosed? Was I in control when my brother took his life? Was I in control when that lady took advantage of me at 17y/o?
Think of the Stoics, and the ism they espouse: they would lead us both to believe that we actually are in control of, at the very least, our reaction.
But this seems to be to be at odds with what is known.
For instance:
Did Jesus ever call us to control our desires? Did Jesus come here to control us? Or does Jesus ask us to submit everything to Him? Does Jesus hold a Stop Sign, or a Give Way?
Give Way
“I am in control.”
The story behind Grace and I’d engagement is absurd and deserves an entire essay, which will come soon. The bobbing and weaving and orchestrating that occurred — and still does — at a supernatural level is impossible to wrap my head around outside of laying it out on a piece of paper, line by line.
But let me set a short scene for you:
Last year, I had just spent 5 days staying with Grace’s family in New Zealand, and we had just done an overnight backpacking trip together. This was the first time in a cumulative total of about 10 days where we hung out and in which she didn’t completely blow me off.
It was 7:30am, Grace and I were sitting in the back corner of a coffee shop, and my bus connecting to my 24 hours of flights back to South Carolina departed in 30 minutes.
I didn’t quite know what to say to Grace.
Looking back, I actually feel bad: I literally walked in through her front door (via a mutual friend), eventually had an amazing time together after battling through what I perceived to be disinterest (but was actually her shock), and then was slithering away, 9,000 miles back home.
But in some deluded state, all I kept saying to her was,
“If God is behind this, He will make it work.”
Truthfully, I didn’t even believe it.
I just didn’t know what else to say.
My posture was correct, though.
If God had orchestrated our meeting, and in doing so deciding to obliterate the mathematical discipline of statistics itself, all we really needed to do now was…
Submit.
He wasn’t going to lead us into something blindly, or with no out. Even if that means the only out is through exclusively relying on His means.
No, if I was aware at the time, I would’ve been able to see that in the midst of that confusion, that all God was really asking of me (and Grace, I can now speak on her behalf, right?) was to Give Way.
“All I need from you,” I imagine He was repeating to me, “is to get out of the damn way.”
It took me months to figure that out.
Months of uncertainty... months of actually, if I can say, quiet suffering.
Months of struggling through a situation which nobody in my life could POSSIBLY relate to or comprehend or understand or even advise me on.
Months of conversations wrought with fear and uncertainty with people, only to walk away and say to myself,
“Wow, I really am alone in this.”
Lost
“All I need from you…”
The first sentence in this essay says,
“What is my mission?”
The question is new, the underlying factor is not.
For months, I have pursued vanity metrics and attempted to build my business on everything except that which I actually believe in.
I’ve wasted time chasing, working on, and not enjoying partnerships with brands because I was too scared to trust what God had originally told me.
4 years ago I wrote a mission statement:
“I found peace and I found God by getting into Creation, and I think others can too.”
I can pretty easily justify how a nice essay fits into that.
But a partnership with an… anti-odor spray can from Walmart?
That’s what it looks like to build a life scared.
Only now have I begun to understanding that sitting behind the wheel and staring at the Give Way sign is not sufficient.
At some point, I have to enter the flow.
So that is what I am doing.
This mission was not built on viral Reels; it was not built on infinitely refined opening sentences that grab the absolute maximum attention; and it was not built on brand partnerships from companies or organizations that, God bless them, don’t mean anything to me.
This mission was built on writing.
This mission was built on honesty.
This mission was, in large part, built on sharing the story of my suffering, and the things I am learning to-day.
This mission was built on exhaling, and in doing so, giving someone else the permission to exhale as well.
This mission is only possible because of Out There Club Members. Their monthly support enables me to:
Share 3-4 essays each week on Instagram
Write about the things no brand will ever sponsor
Pursue truth and the creative work that I was called to do
And in doing all of that, hopefully give others a reason to push forward as well.
If that sounds like something you want to be a part of, you can join the Out There Club here, for $12/month. You'll get essays like this each month, plus access to our private community and occasional postcards from wherever I am in the world.
No contracts, no massive organization. If you want to cancel at some point, just email me: Bryce@brycectravels.com
Until next time,
See You Out There.
Bryce C