"My life is too predictable": Being called to adventure
Channel: Quest for a Meaningful Life
Date: 22/10/2019

How easy is it for life to fall into a regular routine, this feeling of a grind, normalcy, a repeating pattern? And, well, there's many advantages to that. 
We can have a lot of efficiency with having routines. 
We can get a lot of good healthy habits rolling, have that sense of order, and get a lot done. 
But there's, of course, something that gets lost by living for too long and too much in this routine mentality. 
And that's why we all need some kind of feeling of adventure. 
The feeling that we don't know exactly what is going to happen each day. 
We don't have the whole week and month and year planned out. 
We are in a situation that is less than fully predictable, less than fully controlled. 
A situation where many surprising things could happen, and not all of them good. 
There's that- there's a hint of danger as well. 
We don't know. 
Going into the unknown, the sense of chaos is increased. 
The sense of possibility is also increased. 
So I had this thought hearing from a friend of mine who was planning to go on a great adventure travelling around Europe next year. 
And just hearing about this brings it up to mind. 
It brings back those feelings of what it feels like to have an adventure plan. 
To know that there is something to look forward to beyond a continuation of the routine. 
And really, even the preparing phase, the getting ready for travel, is so much a part of the enjoyment of it. 
Researching places to go and preparing. 
Imagining different possibilities for what we can do with our lives. 
Like we're designing a life. 
We can study what's possible, and then we can choose to make- we can make sort of an outline of what we want to do, while, of course, the details are always going to be filled with surprise and unknown. 
We can't design our lives down to the last detail, but we can decide some of the major decisions. 
Where are we going to go? What is our overall plan, our overall approach to life and what we're doing? So that feeling of adventure: it's connected with stepping into the unknown, stepping into something that is new for us, a situation where there are a lot of unknowns and a lot of novelty, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of opportunity for challenges and changes, learning, growth. 
And when I look back at the times that I've had adventures in my life, this is where I get some of my best memories. 
It seems like when travelling like this and- or whatever form the adventure takes. 
Travel is the classic form, but we can have that sense of adventure in so many ways. 
Just having that- an attitude of adventure, and a situation that is open and unknown. 
And that is when I have some of my best memories, and it almost seems like condensed memories. 
It seems like condensed life. 
It's like the memories in a month of adventure can outweigh the memories of a year of routine life. 
And yeah, during those adventure times, you know, I probably lost a lot more money than I made, and it wasn't sustainable, and so there's, of course, all the practical benefits of grinding out a routine. 
But when it comes to the memories that I can hold on to and look back on as having truly lived, it's in those times of adventure, stepping into the unknown and really facing the world in this direct, open way: that is when it seems the best days of our lives can be made. 
So, one way or another, I believe that I certainly- I could say we all need, but I'll at least say I need some of that feeling to be there. 
Even though I don't want that all the time. 
There's great joy in the comfort and routines of home. 
But it always must be must be balanced. 
And the more I adventure, the more I appreciate home. 
And the more I'm at home, the more I appreciate adventure. 
So this cycle of going out into adventure and then coming in to home and routine, this is a good cycle to have. 
And yet how easy is it to just let that home side, that routine side of the cycle just carry on and on and on, and ideas of adventure being put off. 
It's time. 
I can feel the call to adventure returning. 
And even if I don't know yet when it will be, just having that feeling that there is this kind of adventure coming up really heightens the feeling of being alive. 
It's as if we need to be reminded regularly of what's beyond the routine we're living in, so that we can always be fresh in our view of the world. 
Just like it is on an adventure, when you wake up in a new place, you know nothing, and you have no idea what's happening, and you have sensory overload of all this new experience hitting you, and the one thing you conclude is this is great to be alive. 
And that's why I love adventure, whatever it means. 
It can mean so many things, but we all need a taste of it.