Adventure

I am not yet ready to stop having adventures.

Why do I make this proclamation?

It is because having adventures, whole-heartedly pursuing adventures – physical, creative, intellectual, spiritual – is the mark of one who is a curious and engaged.

It is because maintaining (no, not just maintaining, actively fueling) a sense of curiosity and wonder is the cornerstone of a counterclockwise lifestyle. A curious, engaged, adventurous person is, regardless of chronological age, youthful.

And so I say again: I am not yet ready to stop having adventures. And I hope I never will be.

An adventure is an experience that involves risk. It nudges you back to the beginning of a learning curve, which is an exciting, humbling and scary place to be. But it is the place where learning happens, where growth happens. Adventure is about inviting the unexpected and staying flexible and resilient enough to enjoy (or cope creatively with) what happens.

Adventures are individual, idiosyncratic things: a six-day silent meditation retreat is one person’s adventure; three weeks of backcountry hiking is another. A third adventurous soul might sign up for a pudding wrestling contest at a bar (a benefit for a really good cause. Really). These aren’t, as you might have guessed, random adventures. They are, in fact, adventures each of my three children have recently undertaken.

Which brings me to a conversation I overhead yesterday that compelled me to write this post today. I heard a woman at my favorite coffee hang-out say to her friend (after regaling her with what her children were up to), “After all, it’s our kids’ chance to have adventures now. Our time has past.” To which I say: bullshit. No, I didn’t say this out loud at the time. (I am not that kind of adventurous.) But I say it now. I am yelling it now. B U L L S H I T. Listen. This isn’t a zero-sum game. We don’t have to stop having adventures when our kids start having their own. In fact, this is THE time to reinvigorate our own sense of adventure.

Tomorrow I leave for my first-ever overnight solo bike trek.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” — Helen Keller