Embrace Uncertainty: Choosing Adventure Over Safety

Humans are innately happy. Our base state of being is one which could be called happiness.

Humans living in the same way our ancestors did have no words for depression or suicide, they scoff at the idea of such things.

They live in close-knit groups all working together to survive and hopefully thrive. Their common purpose gives all individuals a reason to live.

They live in an unpredictable place, where their day-to-day is almost never the same. They learn, they play, they fight, they dance, they hunt and they gather.

The human psyche evolved in this environment. It was molded for and by it.

To think that humans could positively cope with modern society is naive, to say the least. We are not made (haven’t evolved) to positively adapt to this environment.

This is why our mental and physical health is worse than ever before despite us being better off than ever before.

What we can do is derive the things that maintain a stable human psyche in hunter-gatherer tribes and apply them to us as individuals in modern times.

• Community

• Movement

• Nutrition

• Tradition

• Play

• Music

• Purpose

I have written about many of these but the most important could well be a sense of adventure.

Without the sense of an adventure good health, and the rest matter little.

I took the Leap

Three long dark winters. I’m over it. I’m done. I’m moving.

Where is the sun? Where is the light? Where is the sea?

I’m going there.

What do I want? No, what do I really want?

If I had all the money in the world, what would I do, and where would I go?

What would I spend my time on, and who would I spend that time with?

I’d live like my idols, the Greek philosophers. Lovers of wisdom whose mission was to travel the road toward human potential.

What could humans achieve if their sole purpose was to strive for supreme achievement?

They split the human into three fundamental parts,

1. The body

2. The mind

3. The spirit

Their goal? Maximize all three.

I’d spend my time creating beauty in mind, body, and spirit.

Acquire as much wisdom as possible while teaching my body to move in ways I could never dream of, and work on the elusive state of inner peace.

I would do all this somewhere where the water is close and the sun is shining.

With all that said, I took the leap and moved away from Stockholm.

Yesterday I arrived in my new home where the sun shines and the Mediterranean Sea is a short walk away.

The sunny coast of Spain.

Along with two friends who both wanted to walk alongside the Greek philosophers we packed the car and drove 3000km south.

No job, no home, no problem.

Life should be an Adventure

The real problems in life are a lack of purpose and a lack of sense of adventure.

The antithesis of adventure is safety.

Being in a safe place where everything becomes routine does not scream adventure. Routine without excitement that is.

A place where the certainty of your daily life is keeping you from taking the leap to an uncertain adventure is how I define being stuck in the rat race.

Do you need that job you don’t like?

It pays well, sure, but is it what you love and is it an adventure?

Most of us spend our time in a way so that we can keep living the lifestyle that we desperately say we want to change.

We cannot remove our attraction to safety. But we can increase our affinity for uncertainty and adventure.

However, it requires some effort and conscious thought.

Unless you have found exactly the routine you love, in a place you love, with people you love, take the leap.

Whatever that means for you.

What do you want?

What could you see yourself doing even if you didn’t get paid?

What would you do even if you were as rich as Elon Musk?

How would your day-to-day life look like if you had all the money in the world?

Answer those questions genuinely and the leap you should take will emerge.

One step closer to your answer is all you need. The adventure is the unpredictable journey in pursuit of your answer.

The Journey All Humans Want

A journey is the perfect metaphor for what a human life should be.

This is why the hero’s journey is the most powerful storyline ever created.

It is in all great works of art. All great books, all great movies, and all great series.

It is the archetypal life path humans seek whoever they are. It takes on many different expressions but there are similarities.

The hero’s journey is not safe, it is not predictable but it is an adventure worth going on.

It is what you are meant to do. This is why this story is engrained in our collective consciousness.

We all strive to express it in our unique way.

The way we do this is to take the leap. The leap out of security, away from the mundane, and out of our comfort zone.

We are explorers. Explorers of ideas, explorers of new places, explorers of the unknown.

Exploring is how we gain vitality, our life force.

You know this to be true if you’ve ever gone deep into a subject, become really good at something, or spent a long time in a vastly different place.

Your eyes light up, your excitement grows and you actually increase your motivation to explore.

Safety numbs our vitality. We spend more time doing things we already do. We become less social. We become more passive.

Whatever you do, and wherever you are do not exist without an adventure. That’s how the human spirit dies.

Learn a new skill, move to a new place, get a new job, do something, always.

Move toward what excites you and move toward what you would do if you were as rich as Elon Musk. Not what you would buy, what you would do.

Ready for an Adventure? Do this

Step 1 – Write down what you would do if you had all the money in the world

Take out a notepad and grab your favorite pen. Title a page “What I would do if money wasn’t an issue”.

Now just write. Write anything that comes to mind but try to focus on what you would do rather than what you would spend your time on.

Step 2 – Write down the general terms for what you would spend your time on

Go through your page (or pages) and try to derive what you’d spend your time on in general terms.

Is it exercise? If so, what kind?

I like to use three categories here:

1. Intellectual input/creative output

2. Movement

3. Relationships

These can all be intermixed but they are the three fundamental categories for spending time I’ve found to work well for me to understand how I should and would spend my time.

Now it’s time to apply the insight you’ve gained about yourself.

Step 3 – Figure out some small steps you could take to make your daily life look more like that

How could you spend more time today in a way similar to how you would if you had more resources than you could dream of?

Would you read more books on philosophy, would you create a beautiful garden or would you work out like a madman?

You are unique which means your interests are too. Do not do what you think you should want to do, do what you genuinely want to do.

Define the smallest step you can take today. It’s time to take the leap, the leap into the unknown, the unpredictable, the place where safety no longer exists.

Step 4 – Take the leap and start your adventure

I like to remind myself that I’d rather be homeless and happy than rich and sad.

Somehow it puts everything in perspective for me. I could take the safe path and get a good degree, get a good job, and have a good life.

That doesn’t excite me one bit. It’s scary to embrace uncertainty and the chance of failure.

We only get one chance at this life and I’d rather have an exciting one than a safe and “good” one.

I’m sure most of your reading this will have a “safe” (in the most literal sense) even if you chose adventure over safety.

Our evolutionary programming is pulling us in the direction of safety.

Why?

Because, on the other side of safety, death lurks. But, it doesn’t anymore.

The risk of adventure today is almost never death. So, I implore you to take the leap and live life in a way that excites you.

Even if it’s scary, even if it is not what your parents want, and even if it makes you anxious. Take the leap toward something big and scary.

You will thank yourself in the future. And as always, until next Sunday, do what makes your future self proud.