What is An Adventure?
“Adventure is just a personal thing, I decided, it means whatever you want it to. To me it means having a go at something that might be exciting or difficult, just to see if I can.”
I love Lois’ definition.
Sometimes, I get caught up in the idea that an adventure is something specific – that it has a scale, a certain amount of suffering and time required to undertake it. In reality though, most times I don’t really buy into that idea at all. I think any ‘rules’ regarding what an adventure is, are the residue of someone else’s life on me. Comparing yourself to other people can be poisonous.
Adventures for me typically start when things don’t always go according to plan. I had grand plans of raising a perfect daughter in an imperfect world. Yah, right. Turns out there are no perfect humans, and Bev turned out just fine, graduating from RPI in 2010. I always wonder if it was because of me or in spite of me. Probably a bit of both. Putting her on a dirt bike at 3 1/2 and skiis at 4 certainly helped her to learn about decision making at an early age! One of my biggest adventures these days is trying to keep up with her when we go snowboarding. Parenting is nothing, if not an adventure. Bob B
Trying new things. And, even when doing normal stuff, not letting the little pitfalls and hiccups make you crazy, I just tell myself it’s an adventure and go with the flow.
I had this debate at the end of last year before going on our bike trip around Tasmania. It wasn’t feeling like an adventure because we were still travelling in our home country, staying in hotels/pubs instead of camping and because we had everything booked – basically the total opposite of our previous bike trips. This feeling definitely disappeared when we were out enjoying the new roads and meeting interesting people. Adventures definitely come in all shapes and sizes!
An adventure is becoming engaged in something. Could be something you’ve thought about doing or want to do. Could be something you’d rather not be engaged in (not going there). If you’re lucky, you come out on the other end none the worse for wear better prepared to successfully engage the next adventure… grinning from ear to ear.
Adventure is doing something/anything out of the normal. To me is getting on a bike and going someplace without a planned route or schedule. You do lots of little adventures and a few major ones. I have done a few majors and wish I could do more little ones.
Real adventure starts when you in the middle of nowhere, it’s getting dark, you don’t know how far till the next town and your reserve light is blinking 😉
Everytime I get on my bike I consider it an adventure. Just some are smaller then others. of course a small adventure with a mechanical problem always becomes a big adventure. Something about getting on my bike and just riding around feels different then anything else.
The only people we should measure ourselves against is ourself. An act can be an achievement and adventure if it stretches us beyond our personal boundary. It doesn’t matter how that compares to the activities of others. Many times, I’ve done “small” things that others wouldn’t respect but, knowing myself, I knew they were HUGE. For me, anyway. And that’s all that matters.
Motorcycling was one such accomplishment for me. Long-distance trips another. Riding across the windy, rainy Mackinaw Bridge at night in MI was another. We need to live for ourselves, not others.
Good question, Fuzz.