I’ve done a lot of blog posts this year based upon our adventures and where we have been so I’m taking a short break from that and instead featuring some posts based upon my opinions, midlife and adventure as a whole rather than specifics.
The definition of someone adventurous is amongst other things “someone who is willing to take chances”.
When I set up this blog I definitely felt it was time to take a chance on life. To experience different ideologies, new places, ways of life and alternative cultures.
Adventure is stepping out of your comfort zone by doing something that you normally wouldn’t do. It could be helping out a random stranger to working up the courage to make friends with a complete stranger. When was the last time you did either of those?
Someone who is adventurous is willing to take risks and to try new methods.
I quite like quotes and sometimes if you do a bit of research you find something that really speaks to you or motivates you. Here are a few I quite like and why they speak to me……
“Adventure may hurt you, but monotony will kill you” Marcus Purvis
The idea of being retired and living each day as if you are in God’s waiting room is a total anathema to me!
“To travel is to live” Hans Christian Anderson
“Jobs fill your pockets but adventures fill your soul” Jaime Lynn
I have been fortunate to do some travelling and it definitely ignites my soul and makes me feel alive. I particularly enjoy understanding the social history of countries, looking how their way of life has evolved over time, seeing how the average person lives and understanding their priorities.
I’ve been creating my own holidays and travels since 1999, visiting a travel agent is not for me and the idea of cruising is just not on my radar. Being stuck on a ship with thousands of other passengers would be my idea of hell! I’m aware there are a lot of midlife people who thoroughly enjoy this style of travel but not me. I can barely cope with an organised excursion alongside 10-15 others in a minibus.
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step” Lao Tzu
My midlife adventure blog had to start somewhere and releasing the thoughts pent up in my brain was my starting point and there is still no end in sight! I never began this journey striving for hundreds of likes, viewers or subscribers. I really wanted it to grow organically which it has and knowing I have international readers definitely gives me a thrill that I didn’t anticipate at the onset. I would love, if anything, more feedback, more comments, purely so I can grow myself and make my posts more interesting.
“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul” John Muir
As part of a previous adventure in America we had visited the great coastal redwoods of Muir Woods overlooking San Francisco Bay and I had purchased a book of John Muir poems. Seeing this quote pop up on my research for this post reminds me of that adventure and how being out among such great arboreal monoliths inspired me to find more time to be in nature.
“The journey matters more than the destination” Tony Fahkry
Midlife adventures isn’t all about travelling and exploring the world it’s about the journey you find yourself upon in delivering that adventure. What you learn about yourself and also your dynamic as a couple. The roles you find yourself taking on, the compromises you make and the honest evaluations you make en route to your destination.
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming “wow, what a ride!””Hunter S Thompson
I chose this quote, at the onset, for my home page because it really says it all for me.
Growing up and then returning home in my early forties to a fairly traditional conservative area of the UK I often find myself in the company of people who believe their key focus in life is to scrimp and save in order to ensure their children inherit a tidy sum of money.
In other words they give up on enjoying life to its full extent to ensure the comfort of their offspring.
I find myself questioning their logic in so much as if most people have their children when they are in their 20-30’s then by the time they die at at 80, based upon life expectancy in the Western world, their children will be 50-60 years old. What’s the use of inheriting an amount of money at that age except to continue this prophecy and give it to the grandchildren?
Being the richest person in the graveyard seems to me to be an incredible waste thus I like this quote and intend to live life as I see fit regardless of whether I am spending my kids’ inheritance.
Adventures come in all sorts of formats, some conventional and some less so but every entry in my blog is a part of my midlife adventure and all the photos are taken from our personal collection.
If you would like to add some other quotes that provoke thoughts about adventures please feel free to comment
A Midlife Adventure 