June 4, 2020

When Adventure Calls

Adventure is calling. It’s been far too long since my last dose of cathartic culture shock. I crave the moments of novelty that awaken the senses and rattle me down to my core. I long for the undeniable inner knowing that tends to only come about when I travel–the reassuring gut feeling that I am exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I am meant to be doing. A feeling of trust...that for once, all is well regardless of challenges or chaos. That things are as they should be.

It’s rare to feel that way.

I remember the first time I experienced it. I was boarding a plane just after turning 17 years old and was leaving on the first of my many solo adventures abroad. I would be spending the next six months in France as a part of a student exchange program through the American Field Service. As I passed through airport security, I turned to look back at my family and friends who came to see me off. Each time I looked back they quickly smiled and started waving, until I turned the corner. And then, I was on my own.

It was exhilarating and scary as hell. I didn’t speak French and had never done something like this before, but from the time I was a little girl, I dreamt of becoming an explorer who traveled the world instead of walking down the aisle with prince charming. I longed for adventure. So when the airplane’s engines started to rumble, I felt an electric calm. I knew I was living the way I was meant to live.

The decades to follow were spent wandering a meandering path of trial and error. I went to college and got a degree in International Business, got a soul-crushing cubicle job, got laid off during the recession, and then started my own business while waitressing on the side.

I always doubted if I was living my purpose. The sense of knowing that reassured me tended to only come about when I was abroad and it made me question everything in my daily life. I grappled constantly with the concept of purpose. Wasting my time doing the wrong thing terrified me. I dreaded the thought of looking back from my deathbed with regret after realizing I lived my life based on the expectations I thought others had for me.

A couple of years ago, I reached a breaking point–I was fed up with the doubt that crept in when I was between travels. I decided to do a thought experiment. What if instead of chasing the next adventure for the sense of purpose and joy I craved, I tried to find it wherever I was at?

I took an honest look at who I was and how I acted when I traveled and deconstructed the behaviors that contributed to that knowing feeling that seemed to come effortlessly when I was abroad but was elusive in daily life.

When I traveled, I felt fully alive. I would look around me with awe at the new sights and smells, inhaling the present like a much-needed breath of air. I would see challenges and unexpected setbacks as part of the adventure, recognizing that they were the elements that made up a great story. I would find the humor in a situation and laugh freely. I was openhearted and eager to participate in life. My perspective was rooted in an appreciation for the wonder around me.

It seemed that it all came down to one thing: as soon as my feet touched the tarmac of a new destination, I would instantaneously embody a traveler’s mindset. All five senses would kick into overdrive and I’d observe everything around me with curiosity and gratitude. Those two powerhouses prompted openhearted participation in the moment at hand and the unbridled joy that’s born from a genuine admiration for life.

By applying a traveler’s mindset at home, I began to see my life with fresh eyes.

I started to become aware of the gifts that I had grown accustomed to and overlooked because of their commonality and dependability. I viewed my home and the basic necessities of clean running water, electricity at the flip of a switch, and having enough food to eat for what they were–incredible blessings that I was lucky to have.

I began to view unanticipated hiccups in my day’s schedule as potential opportunities for adventure. If something didn’t go as planned or took me away from my to-do list, I attempted to go with the flow, improvise, and see the humor.

I observed the bustling movement around me with compassionate eyes. Fellow patrons at a restaurant, people in the grocery store or passing by on the street were viewed through a lens of shared experience. All of us were here, moving through our separate lives, yet all connected as we were inexplicably intertwined just by being in the same place at the same time. I smiled at them and acknowledged their presence. Little acts of kindness prompted interesting and surprisingly genuine conversations with strangers-turned-fellow human beings. We were all in this together.

When I shifted my mindset, the joy and aliveness that had previously only come from traveling became ingrained in my daily life.

It wasn’t necessarily traveling that gave me that sense of knowing and purpose I craved; it was the act of participating in life from a place of openhearted curiosity, presence, and genuine gratitude for all that is.