“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal.” Paulo Coelho.
Sometimes one person’s adventure (have you ever wished, secretly or otherwise, to sing opera on stage in front of hundreds of people?) can be the next person’s job (Freddy Mercury and Montserrat Caballe performing ‘Barcelona’). But then I quite sure they are passionate about what they do. There is probably something of the adventure in each performance for them.
Are adventure and routine always mutually exclusive? Are they two entirely separate entities? Don’t you ever have days where a matter of routine can turn into a very unwelcome event, where you find yourself jumping through hoops and running into obstacles just to get a simple task done? Where you find yourself running the gauntlet and having to dig deep in an unwanted adventure of sorts? Simple tasks and matters of routine sometimes have a way of forcing us out of that comfort zone that we are so often told to step out of for the sake of a more interesting life. And these things can work in reverse too: you tell a friend about something that has happened, something unexpected and difficult that you had to deal with, and they respond with a kind of awe: Wow, that must have been difficult, I don’t know if I could have even gotten through that alone, and your response is something like: Well it wasn’t bad really, not too much of a challenge. Somehow I knew what to do and got through it quite ok.
And how often do you find yourself reminded to get out of your comfort zone from time to time? The phrase Comfort Zone typically describes a kind of small world or cushy space that we get locked into when we forget to step out, push the boundaries a bit, venture into the unfamiliar, the unexplored. Perhaps it’s all relative: on some days we just don’t feel up to things- not strong or just not in the mood. Some days, as the Jo’burg winter gets going with early morning temperatures heading towards zero Celsius, getting up and getting my hair washed feels like enough adventure for me for the day. So yes, sometimes these things depend on our inner and outer circumstances and whether we feel up to the task.
I think we are all on our own private journey really- a mix of the excitement and often the fear involved in adventure- planned and unplanned, and the repetitiveness of routine which can lead to so much boredom, frustration, and testing of one’s patience. Life is about both. We just need to remind ourselves to be up to the challenge to accept both adventure and routine in our daily stride.
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com
Written for #1 Liner Wednesday at Linda G Hill
Your World in Your Hands 