So, You Want to Go on an Adventure

So, you want to go on an adventure, but you're not quite sure where to start. Well, my friend, I have good news for you; you have already started. The first step to going on an adventure is realizing you have the insatiable desire to go, do, see, smell, whatever tickles your fancy. So step one: check. Let's move on.

For step two you'll probably want to figure out where you're going. For this you will need a guide, either an actual guide book, a map, a friend who has been where you want to be, or a any of the other various wealth's of information out there. Maybe all you need to guide you is an idea. I wonder if I could make it to Minnesota and back before work tomorrow. And away you go.

I am currently working part-time in a used book store, and someone recently donated a Fodor's complete European travel guide. It was a beautiful and alluringly thick book, but it was from 2008, and essentially worthless to the bookstore. I wrote "FREE: TAKE ME AND GO" on the cover and left it leaning against a shelf. The next time I came into the shop it was gone. I like to think the book and it's new travel companion are already sipping chianti on a moped in Tuscany. Sometime the littlest push can set into motion the grandest adventures.

So you know where you're going. Great! What are you going to do when you get there? Snooze on the beach? Write the next great American novel? Instagram? Whatever you do, it will be an adventure, but if you want to really kick it up a notch, try something you've never done before. I'm not saying jump off a bridge into a rocky gorge, although I wouldn't rule it out, either. Eat dinner alone. Spend half a day walking east, and the other half walking west. Introduce yourself to a stranger. Draw your new view. Let go of fear. Sleep outside with nothing except the grass as your pillow and the soft night sky as a blanket. Get bitten by a ton of mosquitos. Those bites will fade; the memories will not.

Ok, here comes the tricky part. How? How are you getting there? Affording this? Saying goodbye to this comfortable life you have built around yourself? Tough love: it's not going to be easy. Only you know what you truly can or can't live without. I can live with not showering for a week (or so). I can't live without wild places. I would like to always be within walking distance of a cappuccino, but I can live without them. Some of the things you think you can't live without in your current life will be worthless to you on an adventure.

One last question. Why go on an adventure? Again, only you can answer that. Personally, I go because this life is vaster and more variable than any one person can ever truly understand, and I am constantly overwhelmed with how many experiences I desire in this short life of mine. However, when I'm scrambling up a cliff, paddling a swift river, or reaching the summit of a mountain, I find myself in a perfect state of contentment. The ringing in my ears turns into a quiet sigh of contentment. I look around and realize how lucky I am to live at all, and to experience beauty and wonder. Maybe you feel this way too, maybe you have entirely different reasons. Either way, I'll see you out there.



But then again, a wise man once said, "adventure is what you get when you don't get what you want." So forget all this. Go already.