Fresh Eyes

Do you have something in your life that’s in the “I wonder if I’d EVER…” category?

We all need a bit of adventure now and then for the fully alive feeling of nervous excitement that it brings.

Adventure, of course, is relative. But well-chosen (if possible..we don’t always get to choose our adventures) and well-met, it always puts us in a position to grow in some way.

Your adventure may be climbing Mount Everest, traveling down the Amazon, or traversing the Sahara desert.

Adventure for me is a often a simpler thing.

It’s parasailing far above the water off Maui, jet skiing rapidly (and sometimes idling slowly) over the deepest part of deeply blue Lake Tahoe, or firewalking with adventuresome friends (who didn’t let me forget my promise to go with them the second time they firewalked, if they ever did).

You may show more guts and gumption when you clamp on the crampons to go mountain climbing than I do to jet ski.

Whatever your adventure is, there’s merit in it if it stretches and tests you in a positive way.

And remember, adventure doesn’t have to be a physical thing.

It can be testing yourself to see if you can write a book, speak in front of 500 people, bake an elaborate cake for a loved one’s birthday when the kitchen is an unfamiliar place for you, or rally a discouraged team to move far beyond past limitations in order to achieve far greater success than they expect.

With any adventure, there are stages you’ll face, and preparation you’ll need to do. Here are a few of the key stages you’ll move through:

1. Apprehension

Sometimes adventures are best experienced without a lot of preparation. That means you don’t have a lot of time to get nervous.

And sometimes a little apprehension can be a good thing because it motivates you to plan and prepare more thoroughly, reducing the risk of the experience.

2. Preparation

This includes mental preparation: mentally rehearsing, imagining yourself being confident and successful even if not always comfortable in the unusual circumstances you’re putting yourself into, willingly.

Preparation also includes physical readiness, such as lifting weights, building up endurance, eating the right foods, drinking plenty of water, getting enough sleep.

3. Figuring out your backup plan

Along with rehearsing for success, create a backup plan in case something goes wrong.

For example, with whom, and how will you communicate with your support crew, if you have one? How will you reach an emergency crew if there’s equipment failure or an injury?

What will you do if some essential step in your plan doesn’t work, and you have to adapt, innovate, or in other ways accommodate circumstances you find yourself in?

You can’t know for sure what will happen, but you can pre-think without dwelling on the downside of what could happen. If you’re prepared, you’re more likely to handle contingencies well.

4. Doing everything you can to ensure safety in the experience

Do your research. Plan. Enjoy the preparation. Learn from others who’ve done this before. Take the necessary precautions: train, buy the right equipment, make sure you have health insurance.

Sign the waivers.

And then…

5. Trust yourself

You’re testing yourself AND treating yourself by taking part in this experience.

You’ve done adventurous things before, and you will again.

You can do this, too.

Just think of the great story you’re living and creating, and the experience you’ll have to look back on for the next big challenge that comes along.

6. Be in the moment

You’re paying for the moment, whether that’s through participation fees you paid or equipment or training you bought.

You’ve also spent time planning and preparing, and have foregone other opportunities in order to do this.

Be here now, completely.

Fully experience the experience.

Enjoy it as much and as soon as possible. Fear will give way to exhilaration and pride.

7. Know what the end of the experience is likely to look like…even if you don’t know what it will feel like

Just knowing what the end of the experience may be like will give you a bit of an endgame, a destination, a reference point.

If this adventure is a big one, you won’t know how you’ll feel, or how you will have been changed by the experience until it’s done.

Soon it will be over. You may find then that you wish the once fearful adventure could have gone on and on.

And what does that mean, ultimately?

You’ll just have to start planning for the next scary-exciting experience as soon as this one is done.

A word can be a sentence, and three words (or fewer) can be an entire paragraph.

And if you have or have had a teenager, you, especially, know this to be true.

There often isn’t a lot our son, a new high school graduate on his way to college soon, feels that he needs to say.

I don’t push it. I’ve learned not to.

One day as he prepared for finals a few weeks ago, he and I had been parallel-tracking all day, he busy with his work in his room, me busy with mine in my office.

At some point, I felt the void of communication, even though I know it’s just the way it is at this stage. I sometimes miss the chattiness, the sharing of his earlier years. But there’s no bringing it back, and there’s no stopping time.

Knowing all that, I still sought a brief connection with Matt this particular evening. I knocked on his door, feeling a bit impish.

I waited for sounds of acknowledgment of any kind, then opened the door and waited for more…eye contact.

And this is how the conversation went:

“Yeah?” (Matt)

“I’m seeking human contact,” (me, pausing).

“Yeah.”

“Do we have it?”

“Yeah.”

I smiled and closed the door.

It was enough.

Sometimes a little can say a lot.

Communication and caring – with whomever you’re trying to reach – often doesn’t take much.

Sometimes a moment will do.