The Best Way to Choose Your Own Adventure

Welcome to the distant land called Adventure. Occasionally it's just in your head. That's an adventure too.

 
In the short-ish life of this blog this has probably been the longest I've gone without rambling away with something on here that might provide curious insight at the very least to you all.

It's probably going to happen a lot more (at least for the recent future). I've got a potential job floating about. It's currently very nebulous but it's certainly been an adventure and will continue to be for the foreseeable future as it involves living in another country for at least a year, for starters. It's taught me quite a bit about going for things, and a bit like those yellowy old "choose your own adventure" books that were in my elementary school. So let me tell you my half of the story so some context can be applied to my reasonings behind how best to take hold of your own adventure and future.


The Call to Adventure:
Unexpected phone calls at odd hours. Unexpected meetings. Unexpected tragedies. Unexpected celebrations. Unexpected deers jumping into your path.

Notice those. Immediately. If you breezed past them. Back up now, either literally, if it was a person, or phone call, or if it was a one-time event, just go to your memory.

The Door. Crossing the Threshhold:

That unexpected thing just opened a door. Walk through it. Dive through it. Roll through it. I don't care how, just get your bottom off your couch and go through it. That is my advice as your personal wise Wizard with a pointy stick (staff). 

Tests, Ordeals, Possibly a Death of Some Sort:

Cheers for going through the door. Things aren't all robot rainbow unicorns though. You've got a monkey barrel of tests, possibly lots of paperwork, using acting skills that you don't actually have because employers sometimes need to see an image before they see you. You might screw something up. Fantastically. A great big bomb of a boom because you pulled out the red wire instead of the blue one.

Okay. Breath. Sit back. Make lots and lots of lists. You might go through a metaphorical death, maybe there will be a literal death somewhere (and I give you a pre-emptive hug if that is the case). It'll pass. You might not have talking eagles at your beck and call to help out when your stuck between a warg and a tree, but you'll figure it out. Make lists. What's important to you? What steps need to be done to get there?

Reward! You Got the Sword!:

Yay! You passed all your trials. You got the job. You got the house. The boyfriend. The barrel of monkeys. The raise, the book deal, the green-lit script. Breath. Relax. Trust. Enjoy. Unlike Joseph Campbell's tidy hero cycle, this current reality has a set of Physics rules that dictate you'll have a new set of trials and adventures and all that. Sort of like mini cycles within a cycle. But hey, the world's round, so it does make logical sense that our lives are going to be like that too.

Return:

Your adventure is going to be over at some point and you'll probably go visit whoever lived with or around you before you got the Call to Adventure. This is a chance to go thank them for putting up with you during that period when you were miserable and didn't realize all you needed was to stop hiding and just grab on to an adventure. You'll also probably realize you're really different and probably not happy back in that old place anymore.

That's okay. You've grown. Your a hero. You are living an adventure. It's called life.

Aren't you glad you listened to that wise Wizard with the pokey stick (staff)?

Navigating an adventure to other lands on Earth.
Moony.