I seek adventure in every single aspect of my life.
On my way to school, I inch the speedometer pin over the speed limit just to feel that extra purr of power emitting from the exhausting engine. At midnight on a Friday, I press the next episode of The Office because what good will sleeping do for me when life is happening right this very moment? I’d much rather experience life with the world at my fingertips and feel my chest full of life, adventure, and experience. This type of lifestyle has only just caught my attention and made me realize why I live the way I do. This is not to say, though, that I haven’t lived this way my whole life. In fact, I know I’ve wanted to seek adventure since I could talk. Sometimes, my family thinks I’m crazy for wanting to jump out of airplanes or travel to exotic countries I know nothing about, but thinking back to my sister’s own actions, I’m sure they too have some adrenaline genes in their systems.
So, perhaps the day my little sister opened up her car door whilst on the highway, she was seeking her own grand adventure.
You see, I do not remember much about that day, or the hours that followed it, but I remember every defining detail of that moment. I was probably in the ballpark of five or six years old, making my youngest and only sister three or four. We were strapped into the backseat of my mother’s old, black Subaru Outback, my mother driving. I’m watching the passing cars in attempt to find funny license plates and picking at the deteriorating leather seats. Next thing I know, my sister’s car door is wide open and my mother is shrieking over the sound of the highway wind to shut the door, shut the DOOR! Eventually, in the four seconds all of this was going on, my mother pulled over, got out of the driver’s seat, and locked the door tight. I remember her being furious, which is surely validated, and that was it.
No one fell out of the car that day, or was beaten for disobedience.
As I look back on this tense but unforgettable moment in my childhood, I can only wonder what my sister’s three year old brain was thinking? Was it just childhood disobedience, a chance to try something she knew was wrong? Or, was it more? Was it her version of experiencing adventure outside the restraints of a familiar Subaru Outback?
Okay, obviously three year olds do not have that kind of life-changing, Earth-shattering revelation. But we do. How many times have you heard an adult complain my job sucks, or I wish I had time to do stuff as they quickly move on to their next daily task? Most teenagers and adults fall into a pattern and stick with it for their entire lives. Get up at six, leave by seven-thirty, lunch at noon, and clock-out by five-thirty. To me, these average people are screaming internally that they need change; they need adventure in their lives.
Well, I’m in the same boat as these middle-age-crisis fellows, and I just turned seventeen. Sure, I have college and a job ahead of me (endless opportunity, as these same average adults keep telling me), but I’m not so sure I can just go with the flow of boring life. The daily tasks we become immune to keep us on a schedule and keep us sane. Even at the earliest of times, humans (and animals) followed a schedule so that they would feel in charge of something they thought they could control: life.
You see, we humans like to be in control of as much as we can. We make the final calls, and we decide how to advance. It is when things spiral out of control or out of our hands that we lose that sense of sane control. That is when we think we have lost it all.
But, humor me for a minute. What if we weren’t afraid? What if we got up every morning unafraid of what was bound to happen as our days went on? Sure, some people argue there would be chaos, insanity, and instability if no one feared the future or their next step. But, what if? There’s that tiny part of me that feels like change and uncertainty is refreshing for us busy-bodies hustling to follow our pattern-filled lives. For me, I dream of this new and exciting adventure. I want to fill my map hanging on my bedroom wall with hundreds upon hundreds of push-pins marking every territory I see, every emotion I feel, and every person I get to know. I do not want to follow a regular schedule. I want to be unafraid of life.
Sometimes I wish I had wings - like a butterfly - so I could constantly be on the move. That feeling of power I would have as a butterfly, flapping my vibrant wings in the air and knowing that each day could be (and would be) a new experience to experience.
I like to think that my sister had dreamt that she was a butterfly that day in that Subaru with those warm leather seats, and she merely wanted to taste the feeling of undeniable freedom. Maybe she craved adventure, just as I do today. A child does not have the same fears the rest of us do because they do not know what the world (and people) are capable of. A child will jump off the swings because they want to fly (like a butterfly). They have wide, open minds and even wider hearts that truly, undeniably dream. Adults do not dream like kids do… but maybe they should.
In some way or another, my moment watching my sister pull the door open and feeling the icy wind suddenly smack me across the face (a wake up call, as I see it) unconsciously flicked a switch in my brain and allowed me to crave that same freeing lifestyle. I was awakened in that Subaru Outback, and I don’t think I’ll ever go back. That fear we suck into our brains each and every day holds us hostage in a routine we know we hate, but we follow anyways.
To be fearless would cause unimaginable things to happen to the world, and that, in my mind, is certainly not a bad thing.