What drives Adventure?
Does living a life of adventure demand climbing mountains, sailing oceans, swimming a channel, orbiting in space, or other risks to life and limb? Those who say “Yes” plunge themselves into physical tests. If fact, they do it repeatedly. For me, these are just repetitions of well-honed skills in new geographical surroundings. That’s a lifestyle or profession, not an adventure. If such testing was the only path to adventure, life would be dull for most of us, believing the new and unknown are beyond the possible. False assumption!
Living a life of adventure is to embrace your curiosity and follow it, whether it’s a long desired quest, a studied journey or a winding course. Curiosity drives you to expand, to know what you don’t know, to understand through personal experience. An adventure excites you, regardless of what it does for others.
For instance, I’m in London vacationing for three weeks, renting a small less than chic 1860s terrace (row house) in an Islington neighborhood. Suburban living — What kind of adventure is that? Well, I’m a city girl and for the first time I’ve embedded myself in a different culture — not staying safely with friends or protectively in hotels with amenities. There’s no concierge, maid service or ‘breakfast included’ amenities. We shop, cook in a strange kitchen, take the trash out on Wednesdays, and figure out for ourselves whether it’s best to take the tube, bus, taxi or walk to a venue. It’s a small adventure, but one that gives me a new understanding of life. Chance encounters and unexpected pleasures are everywhere.
The more robust my curiosity, the more I adventure. I may never return to it, but I commit myself to the possibility of enriching my life, not necessarily success. Some adventures have fallen short, especially when I cannot achieve the ending I presumed was possible. As mother said, “That oldest girl has Cadillac expectations on a Ford budget.”
Big adventures can frighten, but, no matter, I accept the challenge. I led a 200 person organization with world-wide tentacles for five years. It was a difficult struggle; my accomplishments could have been more, but I did what I was capable of, realizing that acting as a leader and reading about leadership are two entirely different animals. Next, I undertook my 30 year quest to live aboard and captain a sailboat down the Atlantic coast and over to the Bahamas and back. Thrills, chills and surprises filled every day. However, after nine months, with a thump on the head, I realized I didn’t enjoy cruising. It was too like a full time job. The “I’ve got to try it” ache in the pit of my stomach would still be there without that adventure.
In the end, living a life of adventure is taking on the personally unexplored, working at it, and deepening one’s understanding of the world and your place in it. That alone delights me enough to keep my curiosity burning brightly.
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