I recently watched a YouTube video that suggested happy relationships depend on 3 personality traits in the big 5 Personality traits: High in Conscientiousness (working hard and being considerate), not being high in emotional volatility, and not being high in adventurousness. Given the adventure I have undertaken, the third one miffs me a bit.

 Adventure is in our DNA! Have you ever watched a movie with no plot, character development, or stakes? Boring… We are made to tell stories. We are made to grow. We are made to adventure.

Adventure stories follow a similar pattern no matter your country, no matter your culture. The hero starts off in an orderly, predictable environment, some external character comes in and launches them into some unknown place to try to find something or save someone, they face many dangers, they learn valuable lessons about their inadequacies, they save/find the object, and bring it back to society to redeem and save the world. 

This may sound abstract and only helpful for the writers of the 278th Marvel movie that I’m sure is coming out soon. It is actually the reason all of us get out of bed every morning. It is quite literally the same structure of a workday. 

Everyday we get up in our safe bed with the alarm clock calling us to start the day. We must go to work, where we face a myriad of chaotic problems. We are unsure if we can solve them. We try to solve enough of them to not get fired. Solving these problems keeps the world running and enables us to bring food back to our families. 

It’s an adventure! And depending on if we make the right choices, we become heroes. If one day we all decided to stop, the whole world doesn’t just stop, it falls apart.

Or as Lewis Carrol put it in Alice in Wonderland,  “My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”

I reject that adventurousness is bad. It couldn’t be better. But, I do think it’s all about the adventures you choose and the choices you make on them. Thrill seeking for its own sake is a danger. 

In 2016, I walked the Camino De Santiago, 500 miles across Spain. It was an adventure in that I had great stories, met people I never expected, and faced some serious challenges. But, there were no stakes. I didn’t have a real reason for going and it wouldn’t have mattered much if I failed. (Still a blast and worth going btw)

I’m hoping my new adventure is more purposeful. Focused on helping others and creating a better world even if in a small way. There are lessons for me to learn, challenges to be faced, and the stakes are high. I most certainly may fail and have to deal with the consequences of that. 

Bringing these scattled ramblings to a pointed close, I have been afflicted by Shingles (I am hoping that doesn’t affect my volleyball game!), am leaving Jax, said goodbye to new friends, am heading to Raleigh, and am ready for the next challenge. 

My favorite Adventure quote:

“It’s like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” Sam Gamgee