Don’t We All Want To Lead An Adventurous Life?
No one wants to wake up one morning and ask themselves, “How’d I get here?” And yet, most of us have probably asked ourselves that very question when we feel our life has become stagnate.
Remember how you were going to conquer the world? How you couldn’t wait to be on your own? Maybe travel? Get that dream job?
One thing you knew for sure ……… your life was not going to be boring!
Cut to Easter weekend. I was working on my blog. It isn’t the best way to write, as I prefer the calming vibrations of the classical relaxation music station on Pandora, but I had the tv on for background noise.
Scanning the channel guide, I saw that one of the cable channels would be playing the movie, “Up” in 30 minutes. I had heard how good the 2009, 2nd ranked, Pixar movie was but never made the time to see it.
No time like the present……..
Carl and Ellie meet as children and, both fascinated with exploration, vow to devote their lives to exploring the world together. The first 10 minutes of the movie is a montage of the 60 plus years of their life together, ending with Ellie’s death.
Carl is left guilt-ridden that, because of the everyday demands of life, they never were able to have their great exploration adventure. Determined to fulfill a promise to Ellie, even if posthumously, he ties thousands of balloons to his house and navigates it to Peru only to find after lift-off, a 10-year-old, adventurer wannabe, stowaway named Russell.
Although an exciting adventure begins for the unlikely pair, Russell begins to reminisce about his regular outings with his father but admits they were pretty boring. He goes on to tell Carl that the repetitively mundane outings, he had with his Dad, are the things he remembers the most.
In the mean time, Carl happens across Ellie’s childhood “Adventure Book,” which was a photo album of all the exciting places she wanted to travel. He was astonished to find that she had filled the second half of the book with pictures of them and the life they built together. Before her death she had written a note to him, at the end of the “Adventure Book,” telling him to “Go find a new adventure.”
I’ve been thinking about those last two scenes, I described, in the movie for days. Because ……… isn’t most of our life filled with the ordinary?
I love a movie that continues to make me think about it long after it's over. Don't get me wrong ..... I also love a good action or romance movie that you can mindlessly escape for 2 hours and not give it another thought as you walk out of the theater.
We tend to associate adventure with traveling to exotic countries or extreme sports. Learning to fly a plane, white water rafting or bungee jumping.
Of course there are people who live exciting lives. We think. Do they think their life is exciting? If it’s their normal ………. is it exciting to them?
Boring activities can conjure up feelings of warmth, predictability, security and contentment.
Those are the very things that we remember with fondness.
A few years back, one of my sisters, who had recently started attending church after decades of a hiatus, told me that there was something comforting about the repetitive rituals of a catholic church service.
Repetition is ok.
Boring is ok.
Actually, I think, boring is better than ok.
I wake up every morning at the same time and pack Poo’s lunch for him. I walk him to the door, watch from the window as he backs out of the driveway and we wave goodbye to each other.
Boring? Maybe.
Repetitive? Absolutely.
Every evening I make dinner, we clean up, Poo makes my coffee for the morning and sets the timer. Afterwards we watch tv, read, do laundry, work in the yard or run errands.
Boring? Possibly.
Of course there are some variations to these every day activities but, for the most part, our days go pretty much the same.
I understand the character, Elli. She felt she had lived her adventure. The life she built with Carl was her adventure.
Sure, they didn’t get around to some of the things they had planned but, they lived their life to the fullest and ……. they lived in the present.
The loss of their baby, the tree that fell on their house and Carl’s hospital stay were all part of their story. The happiness ……… and the sorrowful moments, together.
ADVENTURE: An exciting or very unusual experience. Bold or risky move.
Isn’t there a saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”
An adventurous life is what you make of it. Just because I haven’t traveled the world, and I have been to other countries but certainly do not consider myself a world traveler, doesn’t mean my life isn’t an adventure.
Boring? Perhaps.
We’ve all lived through exciting times during our life, especially if you’re a Baby Boomer. Baby Boomers have lived through a lot at this point.
In fact, we have lived through so much that sometimes events occur beyond our control. Case in point: We have a friend who will be retiring at the end of May. Not by choice.
As you can see from the photo, he is still young at heart. He works hard and plays harder. But soon, he will be entering a new phase of his life.
A new adventure!
Some vacations are more exciting than others. Sometimes the people we encounter daily are more interesting than others. And sometimes the adventure comes with anguish or heartache.
Although some would prefer it, and there are many who would make a case against it, you don’t have to have a partner in life to have adventures. You don’t need a travel companion to make those adventures happen. You certainly don’t need to travel away from home to experience adventure.
Adventure comes in many forms.
At the end of the day, your life is what you make of it.
“Life is an adventure, it’s not a package tour.” – Eckhart Tolle
xoxo, Katy