Adventure Lifestyle

a remedy or just a substitute?

We should risk. Risk something every day and, at least a couple of times in life, risk everything.

Risk is part of any life fully lived.

Physical risks are the most obvious. I say risk, you think travel to a hostile place. You say risk, I think base jumping. She says risk, you think Everest. He says risk, I think waterfall kayak descent. Are the most obvious risks also the most valuable?

Risks like these, taken for the benefit of the experience, can be good, healthy, even something to be commended. And while adrenaline rush, admittedly, does not do for me what it can do for some people, I see how there can be personal value in that part of the physical risk experience.

What are we waiting for? Let’s go!

Hurtle from hundreds or thousands of feet toward a point on the earth hundreds or thousand of miles from home. Climb in sub-sub-zero temperatures, extreme wind and impossible altitude toward the sun from the opposite side of the globe. Awesome.

Yet there are some cultural things that happen around adventure lifestyles that I think we should examine. Hearing things like, “This is what it’s all about,” and “If you’re not risking your life, you’re not really living it,” gives me pause. “ALL about”??? Does your mother think you’re not really living if you’re not risking your life? I wonder sometimes whether I’m seeing a tendency in people around me whose lifestyles center around travel and adventure to believe that somehow that in itself is life beyond materialism or consumerism or whatever it is that holds us back, this is our next and better thing. Is it? Or is it just a substitute?

Is it another shiny object? Is it another breed of self-serving success to admire? Another thing that can take too much of our energy and passion away from what it’s really ALL about?

When you’re adventuring, ask yourself, “Am I making the world a better place? Am I helping someone? Am I present for the people I love?”

Research has shown that our degree of happiness is directly related to how much we help other people, and if our lives haven’t shown us that, we’re missing something vitally important.

Let’s not mistake physical risk and adrenaline rush for often-more-humble risks of real value, really living, what it’s really all about. Physically risky activities are usually constructive things to do but, unless done for access for a helpful purpose, say, rescue, they’re still selfish things. We need to take time to do selfish things, and overall it’s good to take risks in some of them.

Do adventure.

But do take other kinds of risks, too. Risk profits to make your business a social enterprise. Risk your reputation to speak out for someone or something that doesn’t have a voice. Risk being hurt to reach out and forge a new relationship. Risk being average in the minds of your adventuring friends to stay close to home sometimes and take a different kind of risk.