Where has all your adventure gone?

One of my greatest hero’s of all time is a crazy adventurous Norwegian chap called Thor Heyerdahl. He is most famous for sailing a balsa wood raft across the Pacific Ocean, in 1947, just to prove a point.

The Kon-tiki Expedition as it is known, represents, for me, one of the all-time greatest true adventures known to man.

 

Living on a Polyniesian Island for a year, he began to understand their history, religion, food and living habits and began to formulate a theory that these settlers had originated from South America. When he started to voice his ideas to fellow historians and anthropological experts, he was basically told that he was an idiot and that it would have been completely impossible for these people to have physically got to the Islands from the other side of the Pacific more than a 1,000 years ago.

 

The only way to prove his point? Build a balsa wood raft out of only materials that would have been available back then and sail it across the Pacific Ocean. He gathered a team of 5 equally idiotic Scandinavians to help him and Thor, Bengt, Knut, Eric, Torstein and Herman set sail from Peru, genuinely not knowing what the next few months held in store for them.

 

This adventure is not only superb in my opinion because of the excitement and tales of the entire story, but because of the risk involved in undertaking it in the first place, especially just to prove a point.

 

They had no Satellite Navigation, a radio that didn’t really work, no way of being rescued and most importantly, absolutely no idea if they were going to make it or not. Now that is TRUE ADVENTURE! Basically, if they didn’t make it, they would have all died.

 

History is littered with these men and women, willing to risk their lives in trying to achieve tasks or reach destinations that no other human has managed in the past. And I believe they were doing it for a damn fine reason.

My theory is that, despite most people believing that they are not of sound mind to risk their lives (we’ll cover this later) and attempt these things, our species has actually relied on these people that are willing to be adventurous.

The ‘reasonable’ man conforms to the world and ‘goes with the flow’. Fits into the system so to speak. The unreasonable or adventurous man questions things and attempts things that have never attempted before. Therefore, all progress relies on the unreasonable man. So the first question you have to ask yourself is, am I someone that fits into another’s system, or am I someone that has the ability to create progress of some sort in the world?

 

This leads me on to my current train of thought; What actually is ‘adventure’ any more? If we talk of adventure… exploration… risk, in terms of physical or spacial aspects then I believe there is very little the common man currently has opportunity in. We have mapped and visited a large proportion of our world and nothing short the deepest oceans or journey’s to other planets, adventures of the geographical nature has largely been covered.

Think its an adventure to climb Everest? Don’t be silly, it’s more of a surprise that there isn’t a Starbucks halfway up as the Chinese business men stop off for a Latte on their helicopter ride up to stand on the summit for 5 minutes. Scott would be turning in his icy grave.

 

No, I now believe the main opportunity we have for real adventure is that of exploring the depths of the mind. The unexplored corners and shadows of our personalities, ego’s, traits and decision making processes. Uncovering our ability to control, discover and process our capabilities, emotions, and potential.

We are a bunch of very complex beings, and mostly we are fairly good at ‘surviving’. Our average life expectancy is on the up, we have advances in medical sciences, we have advances in technologies to create better, cheaper and more sanitary housing systems, and we are learning more and becoming more successful in agricultural and sustainable food supplies.

So basically we can avoid disease, provide shelter and feed ourselves fairly well. Like I said, we’re pretty good at ‘surviving’.

 

What we aren’t so good at is excelling. Creating systems in our minds and our thoughts that can then manifest in reality to allow us to be totally and genuinely comfortable, at peace, have love, be fulfilled, be driven and be content. But how many people do you know that are genuinely like this? How many people do you know that are genuinely happy?

 

There is a huge scope for exploration in this subject.

 

I have asked many people from many walks of life and the answer is always the same. The question is a very simple one. Just 7 words. It seeks to explore the core essence of who a person is, how they want the world to view them and what their overall purpose is.

And most people initially just face me with the look of a lost and lonely vulnerable lamb left out in the cold, and say, ‘I don’t know’.

 

The Question is: “What do you want from your life?”

 

Eventually when we discuss it and the content based ‘stuff’ is removed (how you are going to get your happiness: sports, business, family, whatever), and EVERYONE says the same thing……

 

‘I just want to be happy’.

 

Happiness is quite a generic term but generally we are trying to explain positive emotions and out of these, for each individual, the list of what makes them happy is very personal. What is difficult to agree on is how to create happiness. ‘What system or strategy should I use?’ I hear them say.

Well, what makes one person happy may not make the next happy. Making huge achievements in business may create true happiness in one person, but just being content with what you got may make the next person ‘happy’. This may seem like a very simple concept that will make you think ‘that’s very basic, of course I know that’.

But if we can agree 2 constants, the first being we are all searching for the same thing but the second being that it is delivered by a way of means not dissimilar to our finger print, it is very individual and a) only the individual can truly assess whether they are genuinely happy or not, and more importantly, b) the best person qualified to work out the strategy that will provide that, can only be, by definition, that individual.

 

So, yes it may be a very basic concept, but YOUR happiness must lie totally in YOUR opinion, not in the opinion of others, or (worst of all) what you are guessing the opinion of others to be.

In short, how the hell can someone else, who does not know the intricacies of each and every one of your thoughts, and who has not been through and experienced EVERY SINGLE thing you have ever been through, know better than you? (for the best strategy for happiness success) You are the very best person qualified to make decisions for yourself, you have to be, because you’re the only one that really knows what you think!

 

The point is, if you exhibit genuine honesty with yourself and COMPLETELY remove the valuing of external opinions, YOU CANNOT BE WRONG. It is a fact! Because, by definition, you are the one that chose it, and we already know that you and only you can be the very best qualified person in the whole world for making that choice! YOU MUST BE RIGHT! THE ONLY POSSIBLE WAY TO BE WRONG IS FOR YOU TO NOT CHOOSE YOUR STRATEGY!

 

This is just plain common sense, and an incredibly sound theory that most of us would agree on, but in reality (you know, the consciousness between sleeping when you do a load of regular boring shit and then complain about it.) how many of us actually run this strategy? To take our own advice more than that of others? To trust ourselves or be responsible enough to accept all the consequences of making our own decisions? To not worry about what people think of us?

 

The answer is very few of us do this, very little of the time. But we must remember that we always have the choice. The choice to either accept our own opinion, or that of others. This is something totally available to us at any given point of any moment.

From the many people I have studied and asked, I believe that people do not form their dreams, desires or wants in the minute you ask them, they simply uncover them. They already know.

So you already have the vision or the notion of what is your dream situation or best case scenario. Everyone does. Question is, why are you not there? Or even on the journey? Mostly, its because of the ‘can’ts’ and the can’ts are generally based round others opinions or perceptions of you. And the reason you are willing to do this is so that you have someone to blame if it all goes wrong. You do not want to take the responsibility of your own life for yourself because the problem lies in that you are terrified in making a change, or expending energy, time or money and being worse off than before. It’s better to stick with the safe option, it might not be great, but at least you know what it is. Well there you go, ‘it might not be great but’.

You are choosing this option, and until you are willing not to, you are only banking on one of two things. 1. An average amount happiness or 2. Nothing short of a miracle.

 

Sorry to bear the bad news.

 

So here’s the crunch. Go on an ADVENTURE. In your mind. EXPLORE your thoughts. Your dreams. What you believe you were put here for. Go to places you, or anyone for that matter, may never have been before. Take a RISK. TRUST yourself that you know the right answer (you do, you’re the only one that can) Stop being a pussy and thinking everyone else is more important than you. Stop being a pussy and crumbling under the pressure of fear that you place upon yourself when you worry what someone may think of you. (half the time they don’t really give a shit, they’re too busy trying to find their own elusive happiness). Grow up. TAKE responsibility for your choices and your life. You cannot rate safety over happiness and then wonder why life is average. You can’t make the weather then get upset when it rains.

Change is where your happiness lies. I can promise you. I know because I’ve done it, I took a leap of faith and the result is far greater than you can ever possibly imagine.

 

Or then again, stick with what your doing. Stay in the safety zone. Settle for average, cos that’s all you’re going to get.

Just whenever you get to the end of your life, your time and your opportunity at greatness has ceased, and you float up to the pearly gates of heaven… in order to let you in, God will ask you what you did with your one and only opportunity of life.

 

If you pathetically mutter that you couldn’t quite find the courage to have a great, inspiring, extraordinary life that you personally crafted and were proud of because you were a little bit scared that someone didn’t think you could and you thought they might be right, please don’t think that your opportunity is still available. Cos it ain’t. You’ll be dead. And God, or anyone else for that matter, will not care what your excuse is. You’ll have missed the best chance you ever had, you were just too dumb or too content with staying safe to realise that your happiness was staring you in the face all along. You’ll just have to spend the rest of forever trying your hardest to convince yourself that your pathetic excuse was a good enough one.

 

The choice is yours, because the result of greatness, or not, will be too.

 

It starts now.

 

Go.