So I had been volunteering in Strawberry , CA helping renovate an old general store which I will touch on in the future however for a town with a population of 55 it sure has a hell of a story! I was over the road having a beer with a few of the locals and a guy whose face I did not recognise says to me “Have you been up to Pinecrest yet?” Having only been here for a few days I hadn’t been anywhere quite yet! He buys me a beer and says tomorrow we’re going to Pinecrest and you’re going to experience one of the most beautiful places on earth.

At this point all I know is this random guy wants to take me to a remote place in the mountains…. As you can imagine I was a bit sceptical! That being said the more beers we drank the more we got to know each other, turns out he was the silent partner in the general store I had been volunteering at! He lived in the Bay Area but was bringing stock up.

The next morning, we bumped into each other in his store. He grabs a few bottles of water and says right lets go! I was about to get my first taste of the beautiful place that is Pinecrest lake.

It took us all over 5 minutes to get there and when we did, wow!

When you look at this what do you see?
I want to focus on one of the most powerful tools every person has access to…. Perspective, when I looked upon my reflection on the water for the first time, my mind was blown. Such beauty, peace, and happiness all in one moment!
I thought to myself the locals must be the happiest people in the world waking up to this….. Yet they weren’t.
I thought everyone must be fit & healthy because who wouldn’t spend hours hiking in this landscape, yet they weren’t.
To them this was a completely normal aspect of life. I feel this is when I first started to understand just how powerful perspective really is.

Imagine every day you have the opportunity to feel happy, you have the opportunity to feel at peace, and you have the opportunity to be healthy you’d do it wouldn’t you?
Me and the locals were in the exact same place, time and situation yet I had a beaming smile and they couldn’t look less impressed…. This is the power of perspective. Remember beauty is everywhere open your mind to it!
(granted it is a lot easier in a place like this!)

I was at a stage where I saw so happy! Day by day I went for hikes, I could spend up to 6-8 hours hiking. As my passion for Pinecrest grew I noticed my surroundings started to change I started to meet more like minded people.

I’m sure you’ve heard about surrounding yourself with what you want to become? Well this applies to both people, places and feelings. Over the coming days I met some incredible people who I hiked with, worked with and I now share memories with.

One of my favourite people I met in this place was a man called Byram, a Russian lad working in my local bar we would often go hiking together and talk about our goals for the future and discuss our plans to make it happen. He had to be one of the most influential people I met, he would never take no for an answer he’d always push me outside my comfort zone to the point one day we ended up hiking up a mountain and some 36,000 steps later we found our way back!

We soon found our third member our crazy American friend Alicia. She started volunteering in the same place as me! Had a passion for health and fitness just like me…. That being said she was far better at Yoga!

We’d often go on hikes and just talk about how happy we were. How could this be 3 people all very different, all have different goals, values and beliefs but yet equally as happy in this stage of our lives? To this day I put this down to the perspective we all had.

Since this journey me and Alicia have become great friends and she has even been to visit me in the UK… the poor girl! When you open your mind to the universe you will meeting amazing people and uncover incredible places.

My passion for the lake had become a part of me and I was dragging new people everyday spreading my happiness to them and even if I couldn’t get Remo to smile I knew he was happy really!

I hadn’t even been at Pinecrest a fortnight and I knew the place as well as my hometown! Even found a new best friend!

I guess the one thing i’m trying to share here is if you learn to control your perspective, you will start to see beauty all around you, the universe will start to align with you and your beliefs and then the world truly does become your oyster.