History is littered with the remains of our innate desire to escape the monotony of everyday life and seek adventure. As humans, we reject notions of impossibility and obligation, dreaming of a day when we can break free from the status quo through sheer passion and curiosity, carving our own paths to greatness.
Even as late as the 20th century, these lofty goals were more than just aspirations — the only limit on our ability to adventure was our ability to dream. On Oct. 9, 1903, for example, The New York Times published an editorial predicting that humans would not achieve manned flight for another one to 10 million years. The Wright brothers would achieve their first flight at Kitty Hawk a mere 69 days later. Their tale is a testament to human ingenuity and the so-called indomitable human spirit, but where has all that gone?
The answer to that question, to nobody’s surprise, is money. It is nowhere near revolutionary to declare that things have gotten more expensive. One unfortunate consequence of this condition is that only the most privileged can surmount the financial obstacle that blocks most people from having the ability to drop everything in search of adventure.
In light of this, how can we continue to adventure? How can we carry the torch of human gumption? In order to answer this question, we must first consider what adventuring actually is. The concept of adventure has never been a constant one. Adventure isn’t a statement; it’s a response — a defiance of contemporary society’s imposed standards.
The legend of King Arthur, one of history’s most iconic depictions of adventure, rose as a beacon of excitement and a promise of the potential to achieve greatness during the intellectually dark and politically turbulent centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire.
The Beat Movement serves as a verifiably true and more recent yet equally enlightening exemplifier of the notion of adventure. American society, in the aftermath of World War II and at the height of the subsequent consumer culture and baby boom, calcified around a core of hyper-traditionalism. In response, a group of disaffected young men and women disavowed traditional society, opting instead to travel on the road, experience life and share art and poetry.
Both of these instances emphasize adventure as an escape — whether realized or aspirational — from societal pressures, whether they be the mundanity of life in serfdom or that of life in capitalist America. What, then, are the societal pressures that weigh down on our shoulders now, and what can we do to escape them if we don’t have the financial ability to pursue a poetic life on the road?
I believe that the predominant social pressure bearing down specifically on college students is the feeling that we’re caught in a rip-current of responsibilities and expectations. We’re catapulted through our college years with the suffocating notion that we will drown if we don’t focus all of our energies on doing everything right and stacking our resumes.
To embrace adventure — to reject the suggestion that all aspects of our lives must be streamlined towards a narrow view of success — we must embrace the parts of our lives that already serve as an escape and remind us that we are more than just our future. In simpler terms: put more energy towards a hobby or sharpen that non-transferable skill that you fear has been going dull. It may not be as legendary as capturing the Holy Grail or as dramatic as ditching your life to go on the road with nothing but a pen and a notebook, but remember that those means of adventure were responses to different times and different conditions.
Adventures don’t just have to be activities. Investing time in a relationship that would otherwise take a backseat to academics and career planning is an adventure. Even taking more time to look after your physical well-being is an adventure. At the end of the day, we live in a tough world: Everything is more expensive, the job market is extremely daunting and it is harder to purchase a house than it has ever been. So, maybe adventure has to take a slightly smaller form, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting or rewarding.
No, your life does not follow The Hero’s Journey, nor does it align with a Shakespearean tragedy, a gothic novel or any other category of fiction. Your life is real, it is yours and it is a balancing act. Living a balanced life may not always seem especially glamorous or invigorating, but what it is is an adventure — and it’s one that you get to embark on every single day.
