Adventure

Today I was re-reading one of my favorite Maya Angelou books “Wouldn’t Take Nothing for my Journey Now.” If you aren’t a Maya fan, wow, are you missing out. I never thought I was a big poetry fan, but her writing is like pure poetry for the soul.

Today a beautiful paragraph caught my eye.

“Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure. We leave our homes for work, acting and even believing that we will reach our destinations with no unusual event startling us out of our set expectations. The truth is we know nothing, not where our cars will fail or when our buses will stall, whether our places of employment will be there when we arrive, or whether, in fact, we ourselves will arrive whole and alive at the end of our journey.

Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all of our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”

I love the reminder that life is an adventure. That we shouldn’t let our routines stifle the joy we can find if we are flexible enough to find it. And that we each are the creator of this marvelous journey we call life.

A co-worker this week shared the beauty of not planning. Sometimes the best plan is not having a plan. Because when we don’t plan, we leave room for adventure and serendipitous joy.

In our overly scheduled lives, do we leave enough time for pure adventure? When we have a down moment, do we use our time wisely and seek experiences that startle us out of our expectations?

What a beautiful concept – the pursuit of treating life as art. How amazing could life be if we brought all of our energies to each encounter? With the intention of creating the masterpiece of a lifetime of adventure?

It’s a noble goal. And what a powerful mindset it could be to start each day seeking adventure.