Adventure Starts With A Need

— What’s your need?

Prompt: Unleash your adventurous side.

Adventure starts with stress, boredom, frustration, or simmering anger.

Unmet needs lead to adventure, but careful how you go about it.

The world puts a huge emphasis on having that need met within a romantic relationship.

Find a partner and everything will be great. That might be true, but it depends on the relationship.

A soulless sexual relationship is not going to meet that need.

If getting married or having a partner was the answer, then why are there so many broken relationships?

Don’t put that responsibility onto someone else to do the work of making you happy. That’s your job.

None of us can escape it. We all have to find a way to get our needs met and that takes time and effort.

Happy, fulfilled, satisfied individuals, listen to the cries of their own soul and look for ways to satisfy them.

They say God is the only one that can meet that deep need in us. I’ve tried sitting in silence before God, and the need was not always met.

Maybe I thought God could fix me by just sitting there, that he could fill the void.

When we are broken, God will comfort us and we can bask in the divine light and love. The spirit meets us where we’re at.

However, as we grow spiritually, God makes things a little harder.

Instead, of being soothed in our times of solitude, we receive ideas — seeds to get us moving, for our growth.

When we’re stronger, it’s a time for action and adventure!

We don’t get to stay in the cradle forever.

Spirituality is about living fully.

But, how do we live fully?

Diana’s prompt, ‘unleash your adventurous side’ resonated with me, but not the way it would have in the past.

I was always adventurous, I liked to do stuff and I loved meeting new people. I had an inquisitive nature and still do. I am deeply curious.

Many things intrigue me and I won’t be happy until I get to the bottom of that curiosity. It drives me on.

Sometimes people’s actions make me curious. I wonder what they’re thinking as many people have agendas.

My curiosity can get me in trouble though, but I think to myself, ‘how else will I know if I don’t give them some room to prove themselves?

Didn’t Hemmingway say,

“the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

— Ernest Hemmingway

For example, some people initiate a relationship and I think, ‘oh, that’s nice, that’s interesting.’ I search for the common ground and think, yes ‘this makes sense’ and it’s enjoyable.

But with others, the dots don’t seem to connect and I’m left wondering why they wanted to start the relationship in the first place?

My curiosity can’t contain itself, so sometimes I just let it run its course, and often it’s nothing but some bored, self-absorbed person who thinks I’d be useful for a while to pass the time and satisfy their need to feel important.

I’m always searching for more because seeking and finding is adventurous and satisfies my need to be fully alive.

We are always going to reach dead-ends when we travel through life, but all you have to do is turn around and go down a different road.

I like to see it as part of the fun and besides, we can learn something from every one, no matter how short-lived the encounter might be.

My adventurous side

I have traveled a lot in my life, not as much as some but quite a lot. It fulfills one of my needs.

I enjoy many aspects of traveling, the freedom, overcoming shyness, growing stronger, meeting new people, exploring new places, and being far away from the rat race.

“Oh, how I hate the rat-race!”

This year, I turned fifty. I was in Vietnam and Covid was well on its way. My father had passed away two years prior and I was now parentless and far from my homeland.

I wasn’t particularly sad or lonely, I had just reached an interesting milestone and I felt ok about it.

I felt satisfied with the choices I made in my life. They were right for me. I had a few regrets, but not many. The biggest one was buying a property I didn’t want but felt pressured to buy it.

It was a noose around my neck for 10 years and it made me unhappy as it never led to the dream I had when buying it, which was to sell it at a profit and buy one I really wanted in a location I liked.

Apart from that, I was ok, but it took a long time to find my freedom again after that experience.

However, I made it. I got back on track, repented to God for not listening and doing what the world told me to do.

Conforming has never brought me any peace or joy.

One of the best feelings about my time in Asia was that I finally found my independence. And I don’t mean the first kind of independence that every young adult has to go through — leaving the family home, getting a job, paying bills, and standing on their own two feet, but one where I didn’t feel the need to run back home for security.

This kind of independence was something I thought was out of my reach as I used to feel very attached to my home.

I went to Vietnam on an adventure to see what I could do with my life. What had the future got to hold for a propertyless woman landing in a foreign land with only one thought in mind?

“Well, at least I’m not back there.”

And that has been my joy — leaving my home country to find something new.

Coming into my fourth year, I feel confident and happy about continuing on this path.

My new adventure is of a different sort now. I desire to drink deep from the well of life. I want deeper, more meaningful connections, for shallowness and superficiality make my heart grow weary.