Reinventing yourself

Henk van der Klok was known as a serial quitter, the guy who never finished anything. He quit two universities, a wrestling team, the Dutch Marine Corps, and many other things. In 2011 he reinvented himself as an adventurer, in order to prove to himself and to others that he could stick with something.

In the years that followed he walked from England to Rome, cycled from Holland to Istanbul, spent several months leading pack horses across the Canadian wilderness, and paddled the entire Mississippi river in a kayak in 110 days. He slept in graveyards, ate raw eggs, walked across Spain three times, was chased by feral dogs in Romania, and stood face to face with a grizzly bear in Canada.

He started his travels for somewhat dysfunctional reasons, but over time he discovered that trying all these new things had a surprisingly beneficial effect on him…