Post written by Laura Cococcia. You can follow Laura on Twitter.
Last week, I posted a poll to find out about the last thing you did that was truly adventurous.
Yes, I am an adventure addict, so talking about it makes me want to climb a big fat mountain.
But there was a reason for the poll. I had recently found a super cool liberal Catholic church (who knew?) and went there to check it out. The sermon was about Advent, the 4-week period of time leading up to the Christmas holiday.
And the priest took an interesting turn. He encouraged us not to think about this necessarily as a ‘religious’ time, but as a time for Advent-ure. Rather than simply reflect on the importance of the season for the Christian world, he asked us to think about the root of the word – a “coming into being.” A beginning.
Adventure means different things to different people. For me, it sums up the spirit of how I try to live my life – bold, sometimes risky, always exciting. Ali Hale, the brilliant creator of Aliventures, recently wrote a marvelous roundup post reflecting on her 2009 adventures and lessons learned.
Poll Results: Here’s What You Had to Say
Kim (@cbcreatives): Hiring a car driving off on the wrong side of the road with no destination, just a vague direction. It was a great trip.
Kellie (@kmwalsh): In 2007 & 2008, I helped a group of strangers transport a flag around the world. You can read all about it here.
Danielle (@daniellecoco): Start a new company – WELL out of my comfort zone and something I’ve never done before! [Laura’s note: Danielle is my sister. I’m really proud of her!]
Ciki (@Agentcikay): I am totally scared of heights. When I heard that my husband’s friends, Julien Repellin and Azlan Idrus of Skytrex Adventure had created an unusual high elements adventure in the Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam Agricultural Park (Taman Pertanian Shah Alam) located in Malaysia, I just had to go and see about conquering my acrophobia. It’s high, and pretty damn scary. I had to go back TWICE before I actually completed the route! You can read about it here.
Chip: I used to have lots of adventures, then for some reason I stopped ‘adventurizing’ and started worrying and settling and all of those terrible things that suck the life out of you. Recently I started to get back on the right path, and I’m happy to find other intrepid adventurers wandering around out here in the world. Determined to do at least SOMETHING before my 40th birthday (its been 10 years since my last real adventure) I hopped on my bike a few weeks back with a friend and went for a little ride. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. You can read about it here.
Emiel: To me adventure means traveling. My wife and I love to travel, especially to Asia. Now our two kids are 5 and 8 years and we decided we could take them along on some adventure travel. We went to Thailand last July: Bangkok (now that is a real adventure!), Khao Sok National Park and 2 beautiful islands Koh Samui and Koh Phangan. The culture, the heat, the life on the street, the beauty of nature: a real adventure for us!
Lissa: A bit before the lawsuit and during those days of becoming a softly powerful woman, I became an artist of words. Yes! Wonderful creative stuff that I hung on my walls and covered myself with at night. I say, “I found my creativity” but, this is not true and I know it. A tiny little witch who introduced herself as Ms. Muse, is the one who gave me huge round chalk and said, “Write a poem and fill it with all the words you want to say. Then write another poem on top of that first poem and fill this second layer with words you don’t want to say.” And, I did! Over and over, word on word and layer on layer.
When I ran out of words the only thing on the paper was. . .dare I say, art! Yes. This is my greatest adventure and it happened not too long ago. After Ms. Muse hung the first word layered print– Negative Vibrations– on my living room wall, I lost my job. A year later, we, Ms. Muse and I, hung our art prints in a small, cozy coffee shop. And, OMG, that was a real holler of an adventure. The very outrageous fact of this story is, I have my old mean boss to thank! And, truly, I am most grateful for our experience together.
As I Flip The Page
I’m reading these and thinking about my own adventures. I’ve got plenty, many of which are captured here on the site. And I’ve got many planned for 2010.
But the key: all of us have different definitions of adventure - from climbing a mountain to walking down a new street. For me, it matters most that I‘try’ something out of my comfort zone – and through that, I get a new beginning every time.
No matter which adventure I choose.
Many thanks to all above who responded. You are amazing explorers.
If you didn’t have the opportunity to answer the poll last week, here’s your chance: What’s the last thing you did that was truly adventurous? As always, comments are welcome below.
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