Adventure is nearly all I know.
A tough task at work (as a corrosion technician) is better when reconfigured as an adventure, somehow. When I think back to some of the difficulties and hardships of past adventures, they have helped me realize insights I could have learned nowhere else.
I cannot imagine enrolling in a course where, in the heat of battle, I would have done anything/paid anything/said anything to extract myself our of the experience? Nowhere else would I have put up with the 'spanking' (to be polite) I have gotten from a good adventure. When I have designed the adventure, I consider it fun. When a similar experience (without this adventure perspective) is lowered down on top of me it...could be viewed as a pretty miserable event.
Hardship, fear, doubt and mistakes are deeply embedded in adventure. We have to be careful not to inspire those watching that we are faultless, fearless, always strong, possess iron-clad judgment, are always ready for more, etc. Observers see, I believe, that there are places where no mistakes can be made, but to project that no mistakes are made is only undermining the next generation.
An essential element of adventure is the Unknown. As soon as we step over that threshold, the game is on. Often we really cannot just turn around and descend. We must carefully consider our options and our hoped for plans. There are costs and dangers with every decision.
Adventure inspires hard work. Very few folks ever see any compensation for their efforts. I may even venture a statement that income shifts the game away from adventure.
Failure is essential to fully developing the individual. It is only in the aftermath of failure, after some miserable shortcoming that I am haunted by my actions, choices and weaknesses. It is during the lonely, quiet moments of every day that I realize I am smarter, stronger, better, tougher than what I exhibited during my failure. It is only through these moments that I am inspired to rise to overcome these past actions. Only then, do I realize what I need to do to become who I want to be.
Adventurers are pretty adept at long odds. They navigate hazards and risk pretty well. They are cost effective. They know how to educate themselves to the task, how to prepare for battle with the bigger than life-big-scary-monster. Adventurers are very good at recovery after things have gone wrong.
It is a great education to carry with you when you move forward to take on the challenges you see in the community around you.
Upon returning home, after surviving some grand adventure, there are many who will be impressed- inspire them. Some will want you to teach them a trick of two, but really aren't willing to do what it will take to hang. A few, though, will. In what I have come to call 'every person's heroic experience', those few people need to be mentored. They will go on to their own adventures.
The classic Greek heroic experience only comes to fruition when you return with all your stories, insights, strengths (you are a changed person) to inspire many, teach some and mentor a few. But, the real conclusion, is to take on community challenges.
That community supported me as I learned my chosen avocation, put up with my lame-brained youth and sacrificed to help me develop. Its only fair to pay back. You give till it hurts. Its just another adventure anyway.
