Reclaim Your Quest for Adventure

How modern society stifles your sense of adventure and why you need to overcome it - Your life depends on it!

It’s 5:30 in the morning and your alarm goes off. Maybe you hit snooze a few times and it’s now 6 and you’re running late to get ready for work.

You rush through your morning routine, maybe grabbing a bagel to-go with your large cup of coffee to wake you up. You’re sitting in traffic for 45 minutes before getting to your fluorescently lit office building where you swipe in for the day.

You sit in front of a screen for 8 hours before being allowed to leave just to sit in another 45 minutes of traffic. You get home and order Uber Eats because you don’t have the energy to make yourself dinner and you have to be up early for work tomorrow.

Wait a minute… Is this what your life was meant to be about?

Since the dawn of man, our species has craved and sought out adventure. Whether it was the hominin’s coming out of Africa 60,000 years ago in search of better land to hunt or man’s push into the new frontier of space. 

Humans are curious and adventurous. We strive to push the boundaries and limits of our imaginations searching for something, not necessarily better, but something that comes from the recesses of our being. That something is adventure and discovery.

Recall your childhood days when you were filled with curiosity about the world. You probably had an intense fascination for something obscure (like bugs), while your peers were engrossed in equally obscure but different things (like shark teeth).

Our child-like curiosity and fascination have played a significant role in our evolution as the most technologically advanced species on Earth. This innate drive to explore and push the boundaries of what is possible continues to shape our progress.

Fast forward to the present moment… Adulthood. Does your life look depressingly similar to the first paragraph of this article? 

What happened to living life to the fullest?

Somewhere in life, many of us lose the passion for adventure that filled our lives as children. Maybe it was in high school when you had to get your first job, or maybe it was right out of college when you became an “adult” in the “real world”. It could have even been later when you had your first child, thinking that meant you could no longer have your freedom.

Whenever it was, and for whatever reason, once we lose the sense of adventure, we struggle to reclaim it. This is problematic because adventure is the secret ingredient for a fulfilled life. To have grand adventures and to be able to share stories about those adventures with your children or grandchildren is a central pastime as humans.

Just because you aren’t discovering new oceans or continents doesn’t mean you aren’t discovering things worthwhile. In fact, to adventure today means to discover something far more important - new parts of yourself! The parts that you simply cannot find while sitting in traffic or repeating the same mundane tasks at work for 8 hours every day.

Maybe you already know what you enjoy doing, but are just struggling to find time for it. Or, maybe you haven’t yet discovered what you like to do for fun (yes, this is a mystery for many people).

Whatever stage of life you are in, it’s important to explore this by intentionally carving out time to rediscover what living life to the fullest means to you.

Your job is likely stifling your sense of adventure

Let’s start with the most obvious barrier to an adventure-filled life: prioritizing our careers over our mental and physical health.

When we are young, we are made to believe that a successful life means taking on debt for college, finding a well-paying job with benefits, and working hard for 40 years while investing our income to then retire at 65. THEN, we can go about having all the adventures life has to offer.

The problem here is that the average life expectancy in the United States is 77. So, cool, we get 12 years to enjoy life after a lifetime of working up to it. Sounds pretty shitty to me, no?

So why do we go along with it? Though everyone’s circumstances are different, there is one common element that holds people back: risk aversion.

Have you ever been to a zoo and noticed the tigers or lions in their enclosure? They either look defeated or are pacing back and forth in their cage, KNOWING they aren’t meant to live like that. Sure, they get 3 square meals a day. They have consistent access to water. They don’t have a younger tiger or lion ready to surpass them for dominance. You would think this security would make them happy…

But no - happiness isn’t found in confinement and comfort. Instead, it is found in adventuring into the unknown.

For humans, our cage is our 9-5 jobs and the securities that come with them. Salary, insurance, 401K - You know, all the things growing up you were meant to strive for. But this cage, just like the lions’ and tiger’s zoo enclosure, is slowly killing us because it removes the possibility of something extraordinary happening.

If you have a job that doesn’t give you the freedoms you crave, quit and find a better job. Or better yet, bet on yourself and be your own boss. It sounds drastic, but it really is that simple.

Or, at the very least, take on a new mindset around your work- that work should be built to fit your life, not that your life should be built to fit your work. If you are at the office most of your day, do everything in your power to carve out some “you” time to work on your hobby or plan for your adventure.

Bonus points if you can also carve out some time to work on your own side hustle (if that appeals to you).

This is something I struggle with at times as well, even though I work from home. I’m online working all day yet try to make time to drive to jiu-jitsu or to the range to shoot my bow. By the end of it the day, I tell myself I’m too tired and say something along the lines of “I worked hard today, I deserve to watch Netflix or do something mindless for the rest of today”. When really, I deserve to put myself first and work on my goals.

I’ll add as a disclaimer that Maddie and I are extremely fortunate to have jobs that allow us to work remotely. We also work very hard to be able to take days or weeks off at a time when we are called to do so.

But one doesn’t just stumble into that - you still need to work hard and challenge yourself and fight your competition to earn it. In fact, both of us had to take a risk at some point to make it where we are now (maybe more on that in a separate article if enough people are interested).

Adventure enhances the well-being of humans

Taking “the big risk” might not involve quitting your job at all. After all, I’m not encouraging you to be reckless. However, I am encouraging you to do something to break the monotony of a typical 40-hour work week.

For example, start out by setting small goals that challenge you to be more adventurous, like trying one new hobby or activity per month. Sign up for that self-defense class you’ve been wanting to do. Take a pottery class. Try driving a new route to work that allows you to see a different part of town.

Once you start having small “adventures” in one area of your life, you’ll be surprised at how fast they snowball into a completely different and more satisfying life.

Once you start trying new things to break the monotony, take bigger leaps. Maybe you plan your first backpacking trip or start that backyard garden you’ve been talking about for years.

Take Action: Whatever your version of “adventure” is, it starts with taking a small risk every day. What’s one thing different from your daily routine that you’ve been wanting to do? Sign up for it. Say yes.

For me, this was saying yes to a hunting trip with my cousin. I had always dreamed about doing it as a kid, but was always “too busy”, or I lived in the city, or I didn’t know how to get started. I always had an excuse not to do it.

When I finally said yes, I became obsessed and am now hunting multiple times every year, something I always dreamed of doing as a kid. I build my work schedule and work hard throughout the year so that I can go on my hunting trips and fully enjoy them.

Whatever adventure means to you, take the risk to build your life in a way that allows you to chase it and get on the path to a more free and satisfied life.

-Sebastian