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Postcard from Barbara
Even though Jason Reitman grew up with a film director father, he thought he might become a doctor. When he discussed this idea with his dad, the elder Reitman gave him the same advice his father had given him when he was thinking about taking a corporate job. “There’s not enough magic in it,” he pointed out.
Apparently Jason Reitman agreed and at the ripe old age of thirty he was nominated for an Academy Award for directing Juno.
I wish there were more Grandpa Reitmans in the world. If so, we wouldn’t be seeing the epidemic of what I call Adventure Deficit Disorder. The symptoms are easy to spot: lack of enthusiasm coupled with loads of self-doubt enhanced by frustration and dissatisfaction.
Instead of adventure, life for many has been about material accumulation, not life enriching experiences. It’s hard to have a life of creation if you’ve created a life of maintenance. As writer Alexandra Stoddard warns, “Life’s too short to spend it being the caretaker of the wrong things.”
So what’s an adventure anyway? My favorite definition says, “an adventure is any undertaking the outcome of which cannot be known at the outset.” It’s the polar opposite of living with scheduled certainty.
Adventure is propelled by curiosity, imagination and a willingness to be delighted by the unexpected.
You don’t need a trip down the Amazon to qualify as an adventurer. You do, however, have to be an active participant in creating an adventurous life.
When my daughter Jennie was entering high school, she decided to spend the summer Becoming Cultured. She had very specific ideas what that meant. For starters, her summer reading did not include the usual fluff. It was time to tackle The Classics.
Becoming Cultured also meant expanding her cooking horizons. Up to that point, her kitchen repertoire was pretty much limited to some snappy French toast, but that summer she decided to learn the art of French cooking. We swooned over her perfect hollandaise and fretted over the lumps in her chocolate mousse.
As Jennie demonstrated, true adventure is about expanding boundaries and horizons. It’s not being satisfied with the familiar. Adventurous living can happen anyplace, anytime.
So why do so many people living in this rich, fascinating world suffer from Adventure Deficit Disorder? Fear of the unknown, years of advice to play it safe and disapproval of others has kept untold numbers of adventures from being born. But those aren’t the only villains.
Author Richard Bach discovered an even more insidious adventure killer that may be hard to give up. “In order to live free and happily,” he wrote, “you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.”
If inviting more adventure into your life is a priority for this new year (or the rest of your life),
make curiosity your partner. Explore more. Be willing to be a klutz. Invest your time and money in new experiences with people you’ve never met before.
Make this a regular part of your new year and when it comes to an end, you’ll have stories to tell of your most wonderful year so far.
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