“Too many of us live in a bubble of predictability and worry that we never experience true adventure. We trade the peaks of the Himalayas for mundane stoplights and the winds of the Pacific for mailbox gardens.” – Seth Barnes

A few different questions were posed to me over the course of this past year. These three questions left me feeling unsettled. I was unsettled because my answer to each question either took me much too long to think up or did not arise at all.

I believe it is incredibly important to ask ourselves these three questions every now and then, to ensure we are not falling victim to the own routine comfort within our lives; something that had happened to me.

1. When was the last time you remember being genuinely happy?
2. When was the last time you did something for the very first time?
3. When was the last time you did something that you feared?

I was shocked that I could not answer each of these questions quickly, or even at all. I enjoyed my life. There was so much love around me to be grateful for. I was content. I loved the routine in my life. I loved that I was in control of my days. I fell asleep many nights excited for the next day because I had created the next day to be completely predictable, and that kind of control had led me to experience a false feeling that many of us believe to be joy.

I realized then that we could be fooled by our own definition of joy and adventure. We could actually convince ourselves that we are satisfied, maybe simply because we haven’t allowed ourselves to be exposed to more. Without this exposure, our definition of joy and adventure will never change. It is up to us to decide whether that lack of exposure is a blessing or a curse.

We can trick ourselves into believing that we have found the peak of joy in our lives. We may make up excuses, finding reasons to defend the lack of adventure in our lives. The reasons sound logical. They make sense. And that is why they are so dangerous. If we can find logical reasons to not seek adventure, we may stay stuck in our bubble of comfort forever.

These are 3 reasons that keep us from seeking adventure:

1. “ The timing isn’t right.”

We love to seek perfection, and that includes the idea of timing. But what if this idea of perfect timing is something we have created in our own minds and nothing more? Nothing ever occurs as we expect it to, so that perfect timingor that perfect feelingwe are waiting on, may only exist in our minds. It may never come in real life.

2. “I could never do that.”

I hear this a lot when I tell others about my upcoming 11-month mission trip. “I could never do that.” Well... me either. I am terrified daily because I know I can't do it. Isn’t that the point of adventure…trusting and having faith through the fear and uncertainty?

3. “I am broker than broke.”

Our financial situations truly may allow zero wiggle room. From the different scenarios I have seen in the lives of my fellow squad mates, wiggle room can exist, but sometimes we need to get creative and make it ourselves. Some of my squad mates were drowning in student loans, living in debt, still in college, out of a job, and even living in their car. These are the same people that have raised over $17,000 to spend a year abroad. It is possible.

The reasons that keep us from adventure will always make sense. It is up to us to realize that it is our choice to say yes anyway.