How To Have An Adventure

Start off without a plan.  Have a general idea about what you want to do, but plans are restrictive and constraining—better to just let the adventure unfold naturally once it begins.  Make sure your idea is specific enough that you know what you’re doing, but vague enough that no one else might.  Make it beautiful.

Tell everybody about it before you start.  This way, you can’t decide to forgo your adventure for something time-sucking, like Netflix or sleeping.  While both of these vices are amazing and necessary, they turn potential adventures into future regrets of idleness.  Make sure the world knows you are going to do something grand, and then actually do it.

Pack a bag.  Or pack a suitcase.  Or your pockets.  Make sure you pack something, at least, so you don’t end up walking aimlessly around your block and back into your apartment for Netflix and sleep.  I find that if you take the time to pack some stuff, you are about using that stuff to do…more stuff.  Adventures probably start with stuff.  Make sure your bag is durable enough to withstand whatever trials may be presented during your epic adventure, but also make sure you don’t care if you don’t bring any of it back.  Adventures sometimes make you sacrifice your stuff.

Follow Robert Frost into the forest.

Take a risk.  It’s not really an adventure if you’ve done it before, and risks tend to be adventures you’ve avoided in the past.  Do something out of the ordinary, and make it into a memory.  Make it into a story.  Make sure you’re not the person in the retirement home who can only tell stories that everyone else can as well.  Do something unique.

Spare no expense.  While you should be reasonable about the amount of money you spend, don’t miss out on some life-changing experience just because you don’t want to hand over a few extra pieces of paper.  You can always make more money later, and when you are on an adventure, sometimes opportunities arise that are rare and special.  Don’t miss them.  Don’t go on too many adventures that you go broke, either.

Travel to Mordor.  Enter the Matrix.  Ford the river.  Take a picture, make a memory, write a story.  Destroy the Deathstar.  Accept an offer you can’t refuse.  Click your red heels together to go home.  Do something you’ve always wanted to do just for the sake of doing it.  Go to White Castle.  Look for One-Eyed Willie’s treasure.  Steal the Declaration of Independence.  Do something that will make you proud.