Adventure Is Out There

I am a man who often does not like new and exciting things. I often avoid variables in my life at all costs. I quite often prefer sitting in silence at home to spending time with a group of people. Some may label this as a virtue, but I think it more frequently manifests itself as a vice. 

As a child, I, like most children, was excited by the concept of adventure. I enjoyed pretending I was a sailor searching for burying treasure and avoiding pirates or that I was an explorer of outer space investigating alien planets. As I matured, I grew comfortable with the mundane. I allowed myself to believe that life was not full of adventures and I convinced myself to accept the truth as a reality that needs to be accepted in order to "grow up". Recently I have been questioning if this is true. Do I really have to accept the fact that my life will not be full of adventures in order to grow up? Will my life be mundane if I live it correctly? 

Now that I am at an age and a state of life where I have no ability to doubt that I have grown up, I no longer have to convince myself that I have. This allows me to question my own coming-of-age narratives. As a child, I imagined typical family life as something normal and therefore unexciting. As I approach this life myself I realize that this presumption could not be further from the truth. What could be more exciting than the excitement of building a family: creating and raising new life and love to share with the world? The premise of family life itself, when truly considered, is incredibly exciting and it seems that it is in the context of daily life that we are called to greater adventures.

A life of work and of family is clearly the life that most people are called to. It is certainly the life that I am called to. This life however is not one that is lacking in adventure. Why would we all seemingly have within us a desire to pursue adventure if so few of us have the opportunity to pursue it? In my understanding, a life of adventure is a life full of excitement and of newness. A life of work and of family is filled with excitement and with newness, one just needs to choose to see it. It is easier to see the excitement and newness in a grand journey across a continent. It is harder to see it in day to day life, however that does not mean that it is not there. It just means that it is a deeper, perhaps more fulfilling adventure.

It is in these simple adventures that true beauty and excitement is found. It is also where one finds a deeper growth of the soul. Seeing the adventures in simpler moments and times is itself an opportunity to grow in virtue. Living in these adventures and rejoicing in them provides, in my estimation, a greater joy than living in a constant state of what I will call worldly adventure. The great adventurers of history, whether fact or fiction, are quite often known to have a real desire to return home from their adventures. The worldly adventure itself cannot sustain the man, but it is in the daily participation of the adventure of home that one finds true fulfillment and the perspective to enjoy and participate in the worldly adventures. When all of life is an adventure every moment becomes significant. When all of life is an adventure every moment is full of excitement and newness.

Adventure is truly out there, one just needs to have the eyes to see it and the heart to live within it.


It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to. (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings)

And the Lord said to Abram: Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. (Genesis 12:1)

I dream with my eyes open. (Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth)

Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me. (Newman, The Pillar of Cloud)

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