Adventure Tuesday
"By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us" - Alan Watts
Adventuring
These days many people are out and about in the world, adventuring, and then afterwards we like to share or experiences. Do you ever read about other peoples adventures and wish you were doing the same? I do all the time. What a lot of people fail to recognize is that most of our life is a big adventure. W always reminds me that "this is our Adventure, right here and right now". If you keep thinking about what you could be doing you are going to miss the biggest adventure of your life, your life! I am pretty sure all of us can think back to a time (or several times) when we did something adventurous. Now, the worst thing you can do is to compare yourself with others. I think this is a problem that is nowadays slowly increasing, because we get fed by Instagram and Facebook, and see pictures of all the awesome places people go to, and think "hey I wanna go there too".
Back in the day, before Instagram existed I would go on hikes and live my own little life in my bubble. I wouldn't think about my hiking as an adventure. Maybe because if you keep doing something on a regular basis it is not an adventure anymore, it becomes a habit? I couldn't care less about what other people did out in the world, because I didn't know about it. Am I the only one who look at other peoples Instagram feed or blogs in awe? I guess social media comes with a lot of packages.
Adventure in Books
When I was browsing the internet world googling about adventuring I came across a few sites that are showing the usage of different words through time. So according to them, are we adventuring more or less nowadays?
Do we Adventure Less?
So, it seems like adventuring has decreased lately, well in the last 200 years? Maybe, maybe not. Question is how we define adventuring. I guess back in the day they wrote about the conquering of giant dragons and sea mammals in the ocean? In my opinion an adventure is what you make it. If you think something is an adventure you are probably right. The whole world can't have the same viewpoint of everything, nothing would be an adventure then. Someone who climbs Mt Everest might not think that going to the local park is an adventure. But Sam who's 5 years old might think the world of that park and call it an adventure. Or Christina who is 43 years old might call a hike in the small forest close to her house an adventure, because it includes things she wouldn't normally do in her day to day life, like jumping on stones to get across a creek.
Plus, a search on the statistics about google searches on adventures shows us:
I am a hiker/adventurer?
The development of social apps has opened up the world of adventures for many people, but unfortunately it also opened up the world for criticism. Angeliqa wrote about that not to long ago in her Swedish hiking blog. People get judged for how they look (body appearance) when they go hiking, as if you wouldn't be enough of a hiker just because your body shape isn't representative of all the mindless mannequins in a store. Just because you don't look like you can run a marathon doesn't mean you can't, just because you look like you can run a marathon doesn't mean you are able to go hiking. Peoples perception are most often skewed, and if we fail to recognize that it can hit us hard, really really hard. Not everyone are able to let comments like that go by us without a batting of an eye.
Hiking and Preparations
There are tons of right and wrongs when you go hiking, things you can do before hand to make it easier, gear you can wear or use to make it easier, but that doesn't mean that you have to have all that gear to be able to go hiking or go on an adventure. Hiking and adventuring is for everyone. The biggest preventer for me to go on an adventure right now is TIME.
What is your opinion about hiking and adventuring?
Here is a positive thing about hiking,
