The Cure for a Boring Life

Do you easily get bored with normal life?  What about “preparedness” calls your name?  If you’re like me, yes, you want to take care of your family.  You want to “Murphy-proof” your life.  Yep!  Me too!  You want to build up your skills so that you’re able to contribute to a group if everything goes to the dogs.  I’m waving my hand in the air.  That’s me!   But you know what else?  I’m almost afraid to say it because it sounds silly.  I think I’m also into preparedness because I crave adventure!

I think that I am also into preparedness because I crave adventure.

Are any of you waving back at me?  Please tell me I’m not the only one that feels this way! Maybe, just in a little corner of your heart, do you crave adventure?  I mean you don’t really want the world to fall apart and the S to Hit The F, but if you could live out a ‘fantasy’ version of it for a month without losing income or having to leave your family, you just-might-do-it.  Tell me below in the comments if I’m the only crazy that feels this way.

If I’m not the only one who really does…….want a bit more adventure in her life – what do you and I do with this desire?

Seriously?  How should we handle it?

Let’s not “handle it.”  Let’s USE it!

What Is an Adventure?

So what makes something feel adventurous?  According to “Jon Levy” in this blog post, there are three characteristics of something that makes it FEEL adventurous.

• It’s exciting and remarkable –  Most of us enjoy talking about ourselves, especially if something really cool or fun happened to us lately.
• It possesses adversity and/or risk (perceived risk) – Believe it or not, Jon demonstrates that real danger (a snake about to strike) and perceived danger (skydiving – because it’s actually quite ‘safe’) evoke very similar feelings and emotions.
• It brings about growth – Well, many of us do things strictly for fun.  The problem is that if we don’t grow in something, we tend to abandon it – even if it’s just getting better and beating a previous high score of ours on a game.  I love this quote of Jon’s, “The true gift of an adventure is not just the stories you will tell, but the person you become in the process.”  I LOVE that!!

So something that fulfills each of these characteristics is considered an adventure!  WooHoo!  Bring it on…….Did I just say that out loud?

Should We Seek Out Adventures?

Okay, let’s be honest, if you are at all like me, there is a little bit in each of your hearts that thinks that seeking out adventure is a selfish proposal.  I mean, if we seek out adventures, we’re leaving our family’s behind, right?  If we’re seeking out adventure, it’s not being responsible right?  There’s a risk involved.  When we look for adventures, we’re looking for excitement…..isn’t that just centered around what I feel?  That makes it self-centered or selfish.  I shouldn’t be doing anything truly selfish. I am a mom after all.

Let me say that I get it.  I’m a mom too.  I’m also a Christian, which means I absolutely acknowledge that the Bible does teach against being self-centered (Phil. 2:3).  I shouldn’t be selfish.  “Not gonna do it.  Wouldn’t be prudent.”

Seeking adventure doesn’t have to be selfish

What’s really interesting is that I’m not the only one in my family that craves adventure.  As a matter of fact – maybe with the possible exception of my husband (some of the time), A-L-L of my family loves adventure from my (almost) 17-year-old son and daughter down to my 7-year-old son and both the kids in between.  Going on an adventure BY MYSELF would be incredibly selfish.  My kids would want to disown me, and my husband would give me “the look.”  Uhuh…..You all know “the look” I’m talking about, don’t you?  Going on an adventure WITH my husband and kids though?  Oh man!  They would LOVE that.  Now, if your entire family were homebodies, then perhaps forcing them into a grand adventure IS selfish.

Is risk wrong?

Another characteristic of an adventure is that there is adversity or risk / perceived risk involved.  Besides the basic fact that there are times that risk is completely and perfectly appropriate – you probably bought a house and took out a mortgage on it.  You are taking a risk that you will ALWAYS be able to pay your mortgage.  It’s a calculated risk.  That doesn’t make it wrong.

So let’s hit this real vs. perceived risk for a moment.  Should you play around with a loaded firearm?  No. Absolutely not.  That is a real danger and not just a risk or perceived risk.  But what about flying?  There’s a risk with flying, but it has been proven to be a safer method of travel than even driving is.  Most of us take that ‘risk’ every day.  But – at least for me – flying FEELS like a real risk.

I think the real thing is that there is a perceived risk.  There are things that you can do as a family that are perfectly safe but have a perceived risk to them.  Recently, my boys enjoyed a day at an AirSoft arena of sorts.  Ducking behind cars on a football-sized field as you are trying to hit your opponents with AirSoft “bullets,” rolling across the ground out from behind a piece of junk to confuse your ‘enemies’ but to give you the perfect shot, learning to manipulate your enemy into a spot where you can get an easy shot off at him with your AirSoft gun is FUN!

But what’s interesting about it is that there is still a perceived risk.  You aren’t really in danger.  Every child / young adult was wearing a full face mask, but there is a perceived risk and the feel of the adrenaline pumping through your veins.  If we focus on perceived risk and don’t put our family’s in real danger, there’s nothing wrong with it.

Is there any reason I shouldn’t I seek out excitement?

While most of us enjoy a good television show (maybe too much), and while in a small way that can feel exciting, most of us would prefer to be out DOING something exciting and not just watching something exciting on TV.  Is there anything wrong with seeking out excitement?

Even in our recent consideration of selling our house, there is a level of excitement in it.  We would be moving to a new house.  With that comes a sense of ‘the unknown.’  There are places to explore, hiding places to find, new ways to organize your stuff, and even finding creative ways to fit everything from your old house into your new house.  It’s not the same as going to another country and getting to experience another culture, but there is still an element of excitement in it.

As long as the risk is really a perceived risk, there is no reason why looking for opportunities that excite our families shouldn’t be a part of our norm.

So how do adventure and growth work together??

One of Jon’s criteria for what makes an adventure is that it brings about growth.  There are ways that trips you’re taking or activities that you’re planning can be designed to grow you and your family.

Growth doesn’t have to be something huge like “I learned the meaning of life as I sat under the moon and contemplated my existence!”  Really?  Seriously?  Yea, not in my family. (Note the sarcasm – it’s called dripping with it.) Growth most often comes to us and our families in little ways.

Are you going camping?  Plan to let your children do some of the cooking over the fire.  Learning is growth.  Take a hike as a part of your time camping.  Becoming more physically active – especially as a family – is growth.   Or plan a scavenger hunt for various types of plants or other items that you would likely find on your walk.  Learning to observe the world around us in growth.

There are lots of ways to grow.  Some we might need to plan for – like the scavenger hunt.  Some will just happen to us – like teaching your child to change a flat tire during your 18-hour drive to your vacation destination.  Wave at me if you’ve done that before.

Guess what?  There are benefits to adventures!!  No really – there are!

1.) Your adventure can improve your immunity and overall health.

If your adventure involves being out in nature – you could actually be improving your immunity.  When we, as a people, are immensely clean, we see an increase of allergies, asthma, and other inflammatory conditions!  So getting out there on an adventure and getting dirty can actually be a good thing.

2.) You’ll shed the stress – even after the adventure

In a 2009 study, Canadian Researchers Jourdrey and Wallace found that taking time out for an active and adventurous vacation can alleviate stress even after you return home!

3.) Adventure can help you learn to thrive in the “uncomfortable.”

Selco, the Balkan war survivor and preparedness guru says,

Even worse, most of the folks are preparing for SHTF but do not want to feel uncomfortable even when SHTF.

During the courses, getting students outside of their comfort zone is different from student to student, sometimes it is sleeping in an abandoned building with the possibility of some (some) danger.

For others, it is simply lack of a functional shower.

But the majority of them usually get into the situation where they test their skills and knowledge while they are outside of their comfort zone, and that moment is actually when you see that your skills and knowledge are actually good.

Adventures prepare you to feel uncomfortable and to be more comfortable with it, as crazy as it sounds!

Okay, so I have to tell you a story.  Three years ago, my family went to a family camp.  We booked a cabin and were really excited to go!  Well, we arrived during the late evening darkness and found out that our cabin was across TWO SETS of rope bridges.  By that, I mean that there were planks to walk on, but they were held together by ropes and had a rope ‘handrail.’   We didn’t just have to walk across it, we were going to have to walk across it with LARGE suitcases.

We also needed to hike up a pretty steep hill to get to most of the activities because there was NO parking anywhere but the top and the bottom of the hill.  We were going to be sleeping in the middle of the hill.  Then there was the consideration that IF you had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you had to walk back over ONE of the rope bridges in the dark.  I was uncomfortable with a capital U.  After getting up really early and consequently being sleep deprived and being cooped up in a car ALL-DAY-LONG to get there, my feeling of uncomfortableness got the best of me.  I was ready to turn around and go home!  We didn’t, but they did move our accommodations…..

I felt incredibly guilty the next morning and confided in my husband that if I couldn’t bring myself to do that, how was I going to do if life actually got hard.  He smiled “that smile” at me and very wisely said, “I thought about that, but I wasn’t going to say anything.”

If I had just sucked it up and did it, that kind of situation wouldn’t have intimidated me further.  It’s so sad that I lost that opportunity.

So what about you?

Okay, level with me.  Am I the only one who really craves adventure?  What kinds of adventure are you considering to improve your preparedness, overall health, and togetherness with your family?  Please leave a comment below so that we can all be better prepared!

Together let’s Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome

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