Adventure

A number of years ago I attended a singles workshop which was designed to help us explore ourselves and what we were looking for in a mate. After having completed several exercises, we were supposed to share our most important discoveries about ourselves with three others at our table, and they were to respond by saying what they'd heard.

The very first man that I shared with responded, "Adventure must be very important to you."

I was dumb-struck. "Adventure must be very important to you." Well, of course, it was. I cannot imagine anything worse than a life without adventure, but I had not only never articulated it before, I am not sure I knew how important it was to me until that very moment. Clearly in my top five qualities in my mate, but more importantly, in my top five qualities I want to honor in myself.

I've just finished watching a program on Turkey, a definite bucket list destination. There were so many places I wanted to explore--places on the edge of the screen, just out of focus--that I could hardly contain myself. I could almost taste the fresh mackerel, smell the fresh spices in the old market, and feel the grittiness if the mitts in the Turkish bath.

While it is easy to imagine adventure in a place like Istanbul, I must be much more intentional about finding it on ordinary weekdays at home. Yet some of the richest adventures I've been on have been near my home. A newly discovered hiking trail in the park right behind my apartment. A just-found hole-in-the-wall Malaysian restaurant. The old jumbled up mess of a variety store, which offers everything you can imagine...and some you can't. Often some of the best adventures (and sometimes misadventures) happen in my kitchen. Who knew that Moroccan winter vegetable stew could be such a taste sensation?

When I've traveled, often the highlights have been adventures most tourists would never have considered. Hiring a junk in the Hong Kong Typhoon Shelter to take us to the back side of an out island and then hiking along a three-foot wide "highway" by the South China Sea, by fields being farmed by musk oxen, passed women playing majan (sp?) while bread baked in community ovens, and over a mountain to the main port is as fresh in my memory as the day I walked it 25 years ago.

I used to go on Saturday adventures with a friend, during which time one or the other of us would take the other to places they'd never been and probably didn't know existed. I am not sure which was the most fun: finding new places to introduce to my friend or being led on the adventure.

I've come to understand adventure as a state of mind--an intention--to find something new and different...noticing the adventures right under our noses. The sad thing is that I too often fall into a comfortable routine that I live almost without thinking. I can't do that if I don't raise my consciousness about doing so in each moment. Otherwise I will arrive at the end of my life having lived the same well-worn path that everyone else has rather than the road less travelled--the one that is my own unique and wonderful life.

Embracing everything I do with a spirit of adventure not only brings richness to my life's memories, but, as I reflect on it, I think doing so has allowed me to surf life's challenges rather than fight them. As I walk into the building where I work today, I face 5 major projects, all of which should take many hours and must be done this week. I am in meetings for the next six hours. I have no clue how this will be accomplished, but somehow it will. I'll embrace the adventure.

A number of years ago I was part of a small group talking to a woman who has researched the mind-body connection in health. In that role she has spent significant time with people who were dying. I remember her saying that people who tried to control their lives often fought death, but those who had embraced personal growth as an adventure just considered death as one more adventure. I think my attitude about adventure is good training for whatever comes next.








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