3 Steps To Have Life Go From Dull And Mundane To A Sweet Adventure

If you’re like many others, you have unknowingly sabotaged your sweet appetite for life, and it has become a dull, mundane experience.

You carry yourself through your day doing what you’re supposed to do and what others expect you to do, and if you’re lucky, every now and then you get in a little fun as well. And I’m not saying your life sucks. You could have a great life with a lot going for you. But lets face it, sometimes there are those quiet moments where you stop and wonder…

“Is this it?

Is this all there is?”

When you were younger, life seemed to be a much more exciting, lively, and joyful experience. Let’s call that the Zest for life. Where did it go? What happened??

Can it be regained? Yes! That’s the good news. But how?

By the end of this article you will have access to having your life be a sweet adventure; the kind that puts that soft genuine smile on your face when no one is looking.

Now, if you really want to regain the zest for life, it’s crucially important that you adhere to this  disclaimer..

DISCLAIMER: This will only work if you are willing to:

• Be honest and tell one on yourself
• Acknowledge your own arrogance
• Admit that you are not the perfect All-Knowing-Enlightened-Master who has acquired divine wisdom and figured out all of life’s mysteries that you often think you are

You think I’m kidding about that last bullet point. I’m not. And that’s really step number one.

Step One: Notice how much you carry yourself through life on a daily basis already knowing everything.

You have stopped questioning. As a kid you used to question everything all the time. Just look at some of these most common questions kids ask according to parents.com:

“Why Aren’t There Any More Dinosaurs?”

“Why Are There So Many Languages in The World?”

“Why Don’t We Want Others to See Our Private Parts?”

“Why Is That Man Homeless?”

“Why Do the Kids Next Door Have So Many More Toys Than We Do?”

And I’ll throw into the mix the good ol’ “Where do babies come from?”

You were an inquisitive little critter weren’t you? And now that you know where babies come from, you think you know it all. You started paying bills and you lost your sense of wonder. Life is no longer a mystery for you. You have acquired all this knowledge about life and decided you know enough. You take for granted that you won’t fall through the surface of the Earth with the next step you take.

And I’m not just referring to questioning the physics of the planet, like “How deep into the ocean does zero sunlight penetrate?” (*ehem* 1,000 meters, after that it’s pitch-black)

I would agree that while very interesting, many of those things are completely irrelevant to our lives. And I would argue that we could live an extremely joyful adventurous life without ever stepping foot into the ocean.

Here’s the real problem. You did the same thing with the things that are 100% relevant to your life. The ones that you interact with on a daily basis. You silently came to conclusions about how everything around you works, how everyone around you is, and how life will go.

You know your city, you know your neighborhood, you know the exact route to take to work, you know what places to stay away from, you know what places are safe, you know which strangers are safe to speak with based on their appearance, you know which ones look dangerous, you know what your food tastes like, you know a banana tastes like a banana, an orange tastes like an orange, you know what it feels like to have water run in between your fingers as you wash your hands, you know how plants grow, you know the rain is just rain, you know the sun setting is just the sun setting, you also know how your co-worker is, you know how your mother is, you know he is this way, she is that way. You even know what the people in your life are going to say before they say it. None of this is a surprise to you. And therefore you take it all for granted.

You did the same thing with yourself by the way. You know your “personality” so you act in accordance to it. You know what you’re capable of, and you know what you’re not capable of. So you carry yourself within the confine of your own self-proclaimed capabilities, and are resigned about, or don’t dare, stepping foot outside of it.

As a result, you already know how your day is going to go. Perhaps other than a few minor variables at work, you know exactly what to expect. You probably also know how the week is gonna go, how the month is gonna go, and perhaps how the entire year is gonna go. There’s a sense of “here we go again”.

When people offer you their advice you say “I know”.

It’s not just you. Everyone does this. Is it any wonder why when we ask people how they’re doing, most of the time they say “same old, same old”, “business as usual”, or “same s**t, different day”.

You don’t bite into an orange and say to yourself “My Gosh! What a blast of sweet and refreshing natural flavor!” And you sure as heck don’t react as this little girl Kayden when you get caught in the rain…

Ok. So maybe by now you’re starting to complete step one, and you’re starting to admit to yourself how much you have it all figured out.

Here’s the big take-away which has been missing all along:

Discovery

You stopped discovering life and everything and everyone around you. That’s the arrogance I was referring to in the disclaimer. You stopped discovering because you have it all figured out. Or you were arrogant enough to think you know enough to make it through life. And as far as that goes, you were right. Because after all, you have been making it through life, haven’t you? You’ve made it day by day, gotten a bit of travel in perhaps, but not quite living life like Kayden.

You might be wondering what all this discovery non-sense is about, and asking yourself “well I already know what an orange tastes like and what the rain feels like, so how am I supposed to ‘discover’ something that I have already discovered before?”

Great question! And I wish I had a more elaborate answer. The answer is, you just do. You re-discover. And I’m not a big fan of rediscover as much because it implies that you already discovered once. Take on discovering newly!

This all might sound crazy to you, but I promise you, you’ve done it before. Remember the time that you heard a new song you liked, and then you listened to it again and discovered words in it that you never heard before? It was as if you heard the song for the very first time wasn’t it? Or you saw a movie a second time and caught a few lines you missed entirely before.

You can actually do life that way; your relationships, experiences, circumstances, beliefs, all of it (and it’s also Step Two)

Step Two: Discover your relationships, experiences, circumstances, beliefs, and everyday activities newly.

And here’s what you wanna know, which is the reason you gave up discovering life in the first place. You have millenia of human evolution stacked up against you. The human brain’s number one job is to ensure the survival of the species, which means your own safety and survival.

Your brain is designed to keep you safe. And for the brain, the familiar and the known is safe, the unfamiliar and the unknown is unsafe or dangerous. That’s why if you suddenly found yourself in an unfamiliar dark alley, you would begin to experience fear, your fight/flight instinct will kick into gear and say “we better get out of here!”. You probably wouldn’t stop and take a selfie with the awesome graffiti on the wall.

Similarly, if I waved a magic-wand and put you in a foreign land in some place in the world that is completely unfamiliar to you, there are two very different ways that you could be about that.

The first is, that as the hours go by and you wander aimlessly through the unknown streets, you will begin to experience fear and worry (if it didn’t already start immediately). You might worry about where to find something to eat, or how to get back home. As the night falls you would likely worry about finding a safe place to spend the night, and worry about being mugged, or attacked. The entire time you might be in total fear for your safety and doing the best you can to avoid the perceived danger.

The second way you could be about finding yourself in an unknown foreign land is taking it on as an adventure! You’re in a foreign land! So much to see, so much to learn! You could dance with the mystery. You’d be eager to discover what’s around this corner, or down that road! Wondering if you could communicate with the locals, and seeing if you can pull off asking someone where to grab a bite or find a comfortable place to sleep, and that would be just the beginning!

Now why do I draw out that example? Simply for you to see the natural, default, instinctive reaction of your brain in the first scenario, and the opposing created, intentional reaction in the second scenario. And also because those are the two different ways which you could do life. An adventure doesn’t mean going hiking. That’s just an outdoor activity. Webster defines adventure as “an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks”. If you’re an experienced hiker, hiking wouldn’t be an adventure at all! Especially if you’ve got all the supplies you could possibly need in your backpack!

Adventure is an internal experience. Like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. For someone, going on a karaoke stage could be a huge adventure. For someone else, asking one of their in-laws out to coffee could be the biggest adventure ever!

So here is the take-away regarding adventure. If you give up already knowing, and take on discovering newly, what will be there is the unknown, and all of a sudden you will find yourself living the sweet adventure that life can be. Which takes me to step three.

Step Three: Welcome the unknown and dance with the mystery.  

Here are some suggestions:

– The next time you pick up a glass of cold pristine water, take a second to bring yourself to experience that drink of water as if it was the first glass of water you ever had.

– When in a debate with your friend, try genuinely arguing their side for them

– Are you ready, I hope you’re sitting for this one. Consider you might be wrong and your friend/spouse could be right.

– On your next drive to work, try to spot something in the street that you never saw before

– Give your loved ones the gift of rediscovering them daily.

When I took on rediscovering my mother, in other words seeing her from outside the filter that I had created for her (as I already knew her), it changed our relationship forever. Now we have one.

With my beautiful beloved partner, I took on seeing her smile everytime as if it were the first time I’m ever seeing it. I fall further in love with her every single time.

Discover your life newly. It works.

“The only thing I know is that I know nothing”

-Socrates