In 2010, JOE reader Breifne Earley was in the throes of a major depression, and was having suicidal thoughts. One day, he wrote down 10 goals, which became his crutch on the road to recovery.
Here he shares his story.
Five years ago, I made the decision to end my life. Sitting in my rented room in a shared house I decided that the world would be better off without me.
It was October 2010, I weighed over 20 stone on the scales, hadn’t gotten a second glance from a girl in nearly two years, and was bitterly unhappy with every second I spent in my workplace.
Before I had the opportunity to act on that decision, I was stopped by an invite to a memorial service for a cousin who had died as a child 20 years previously. Thinking of the devastation that I would plunge my family into for the remainder of their lives, I realised suicide wasn’t an option for me.
Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. I knew I had to change something in my life to push these thoughts as far away from me as possible. In the corner of the bedroom was a television; the movie The Bucket List was on and I decided that I was going to compile my own bucket list.
Drawing inspiration from my cousin’s anniversary date – October 10, 2010 – I settled on 10 personal challenges and a deadline of November 11, 2011.
Over the next 13 months, I focused all my energy on achieving each of those 10 goals. I learned to swim, cook, I changed jobs, cycled around New Zealand, went on 50 blind dates, overcame stage fright by performing at 10 open mic nights, and completed open water sea swims, road races, triathlons, and a marathon.
At the end of that year, I was a new person, happier than I’d ever been, more confident and sure of myself and my place in the world. The relationships with my family and friends had been restored, and although these relationships were less in number they were exponentially stronger.
I felt a strong urge to help other people who were in a similar position to the one I had found myself in October 2010, not knowing where to turn, or who to ask for help. Back then I had simply put it on social media and asked for the support. It came in waves, larger than anything I could ever have anticipated or expected. I wanted to share my experience with others and to try and point people who needed help in the direction of where that help existed.
Hard to believe it's been two years since I landed in India and started to cycle across the entire sub continent. pic.twitter.com/QB2hggNj3v
— Breifne Earley (@BreifneEarley) April 8, 2016
Exercise and I have never been particularly good bedfellows, but I wanted the experience of winning a race. I knew I was still too out of shape to compete in a running race. In the water simply avoiding drowning was my goal but on a bike, I felt that I could cycle forever.
I knew that I couldn’t compete for pace with the pros or even a half decent club cyclist but if I could find a race that was long enough, maybe this tortoise could out manoeuvre the hares.
I googled ‘Longest Bike Race’ and found the World Cycle Race, a 30,000km bike race starting and finishing in Greenwich, London and on March 1, 2014 I found myself on the start line of the event.
Day 1 of my #pedaltheplanet Adventure. London to Arques, France. https://t.co/6jmY8pnO2q pic.twitter.com/YxvWx6jgQ3
— Breifne Earley (@BreifneEarley) March 26, 2016
Some 30,000km, 27 countries, 16 months and 43 flat tyres later I was the first person to cross the finish line of the race becoming the winner of the 2014 World Cycle Race, becoming only the 10th person in the world to complete an official circumnavigation of the planet by bike.
My main motivation for this adventure was to spread a very simple message: “It’s OK not to feel OK and absolutely OK to ask for help.”
The next time you greet someone with, “How are you?”, maybe take that minute to actually listen to the answer.
It might just save a life.
