How To Enjoy Life's Adventure

Life is a fantastic voyage: adventure, excitement, love, learning, travel, surprise. WOW! This trip has everything. Everything! Hey...and we know the destination... right! So we don't want the fastest means of travel...we want a long slow trip with time to savor, rest a bit, take time in the good places and move on quickly when another stop disappoints a bit. So this is all about the trip. Of course, some in your office call life a struggle! They live by the famous bumper stickers, "Life is hard and then you die". "The best thing about each day is that it ends". It's up to you: Misery or adventure? What will your voyage be?

Here are some simple things to remember, things we often take for granted in our pursuit of better travel tools, navigation aids, tips, new courses, new transport, exotic places. The market is so full of products and services to help us out in our journey, that often, these things are just put aside for more colorful and attractive options.

1. First, you need to make a travel map. With a map, you have the best chance of passing through the places that will interest you. You can't buy the map. No one has ever had your journey before, so you have to draw your own. It will end up as sort of a reverse diary, looking at what will happen tomorrow...not what happened today. There is nothing you can do about history and everything you can do about what lies ahead.
2. Get a basic navigation system. Nothing too complicated. First, get a notebook so you don't lose this. Forget the jargon, the difficult frameworks and programs. Just sit down and make your own. You know how to make lines and shapes and write. Let your imagination go. What you can imagine, you can do. Go to the start point for this new voyage. Now, think for a minute....This is not a power boat trip. You are in a sail boat...winds change and you have to go with them. Tides and currents...rogue waves. You have to adjust for them all, but if you know very generally the experiences you want to have and the people and places you want to know, you will adjust the rudder to keep you moving in the direction you want. What are these experiences you want? What environments do you want to experience? What adventures seem interesting? Write them all down. See the links. Are there clusters?
3. Adjust the rudder. Is the flopping around you are doing now going to give you these things? If not, how can you adjust the rudder, given the wind and waves and navigation aids you have. Hey, talk to the other passengers...your family. They might be amazed!
4. Give yourself a break. Often, in doing the map for ourselves and our families, we forget the most important part of living. Stop. Look up. Look around. Where are you? What country (real or imaginary) are you in? Enjoy the moment. Sit down and be aware and conscious of what is going on within you and in the world. In our hurry, we miss so much. We get into such a frenzy that we can't even enjoy the very people we want to make happy. We don't listen to the sound of silence. Instead, we fill our lives with noise.
5. Welcome the new and the unexpected. Often, we protect ourselves from any of these. We just want our lives undisturbed. We insulate ourselves from what is new because it threatens us. So the break gives us some time to prepare ourselves to encounter the new, to conquer our fears and to provide space for the new experience.
6. Pack light! Many times, we take a new route but we bring all the baggage. Just in case something happens. Believe me, something will happen now that you are ready and open...and your baggage in your mind will just get in the way. Keep your experience but abandon most baggage.
7. Listen to your restlessness. It is another word for awareness and readiness for change. Look in the paper for short seminars or courses on things that interest you. Get a book that talks to you about change and moving in life. Look at stages. Read about others that have thrived on life as a travel experience.
8. Enjoy the scenery. Some people spend so much time planning the next trip that they never do see the joy of the one they are taking now. Suddenly, the journey is over and they never visited anything....they just got to the destination.
9. As you journey, share the road. Help those who need your help on the road. Respect the things you see around you. The more you give away, the more will come back to you....really. I am not a flower child -- this really works.
10. Enjoy the company. Share and celebrate life with people you meet on the road. You might never see them again as they are on a journey, too. Connect with those you meet on the road. More and more you will see how interconnected we all are.

And remember, there is a world of difference between being alone and being lonely. Don't ever let the movement of the mob be confused as part of your life's journey. Start now!!! Get the notebook.......Live the adventure......You get one go around!!!!