As counter-intuitive as it may seem, adventure rarely ever just happens. Sure, if you’re a boy wizard living beneath an aunt and uncle’s stairwell, it might fly in on owl’s wings. But the rest of us flesh and blood protagonists have to go out and hunt adventure down.

In order to find an adventure, you’ve got to know what to look for, and it masquerades in different disguises depending on who’s trying to track it. To the legendary aviators Beryl Markham and Amelia Earhart, it looked like the glint of sunlight on a plane’s wing. The intrepid Zora Neale Hurston found it in a daring expedition to Haiti to study voodoo lore and practices. For Simone de Beauvoir, it was the heady thrill of exploring new ways of thinking about the world. For me, adventure looked like an old sailboat and the open seas. It looked like writing a novel and sharing it with you.

What about you? What does your adventure look like?

Me, on the adventure I wrote for myself

Your Mission

If you never imagine the kind of adventure you want to have, how will you ever find it? Get out your journal and describe the daring exploits you’d like to explore this year. Will you become an aerialist or will you dabble in quantum physics? Maybe you’ll take a trip to Costa Rica or maybe you’ll finally try that Indian restaurant you’ve always meant to visit.

Write what a day might look like if you really allowed yourself to dive into your adventure. What would you need to do or learn? Who could help you? How would it change you?

If you’re so inclined, share your dream adventure with me in the Comments section below. I can always use inspiration from daring dreamers like you!