Hey, Medium friends.
I did something today that may illuminate how you can challenge yourself to change in meaningful (even small) ways.
Lately, I’ve been in a rut. I don’t seem to have the motivation that I normally do, and I don’t always know why.
My lovely fiancé stayed home from work this morning to hang out (she has an intuitive sense of when I’m down on life), so we wanted to mix up the morning routine a little.
We walked a few miles to the bike shop to get our rickety, old road bikes, hopped on, and started riding back to our house. We wandered back home along Glasscock Road, got to Milburnie, and instead of stopping, we decided to continue on the Raleigh Greenway’s Crab Creek Trail.
Suddenly, the world was electric green. We chatted, smiled, high-fived, giggled, and watched the natural world go by as we raced and pumped our legs up hills and then glid down their backs — and it was exactly what I needed after months of focusing on my work, productivity, and startup finances for so long.
I’ve never been a big biker, but it felt so liberating to float through the world in a unique way. The world rushed past me: the eucalyptus trees, the tall, thin pines, the gargantuan maples, and we even stopped in wonder to watch a young peregrine nest above us.
As I pedaled and pushed myself through time and space, the wind and the sun from nature’s splendor shined into my soul and completely changed my mood (and hopefully the hue of my pale, white skin).
It was a tiny change in our morning routine — this small Raleigh bike adventure — but it felt good to be alive and moving in a different, exciting way.
Why haven’t I done something adventurous like this sooner?
What stops me from feeling alive more often?
Why can’t I take small risks to live better daily?
These are the existential questions I ask after experiences like traveling to a foreign country, or heading to live music venues, or hopping on my bike for 30 minutes.
Life isn’t complicated — it’s simple: do the stuff that makes you feel alive more often.
So remember, if you feel stuck, down, lagging, slow, in a rut, or bored, you can try one small adventure today with your loved ones and see how it makes you feel.
Maybe you’ll think about all the possibilities of adventure, living fully, love, liberation, and laughter you miss out on just like I did.
…
Life is either a series of small, daring adventures or a boring life prison sentence.
And whether you create these mini-adventures while you work, parent, move, study, learn, get fit, build, create, paint, bike, walk, run, lift, write, or live today — do something that stands the hair up on your skin. Do something wild. Do something different. Do something hard. Do something liberating.
And see how you feel after you do it.
Many days, in entrepreneurship or writing, I feel alone on an island, working to create value in the world to pay the bills and buy things to enjoy my life with my partner.
But do I challenge myself to have enough adventures where I am? Do I pick something hard or fun every week or quarter to push myself to more impactful levels of living?
Usually, I don’t.
I stop.
I wait.
I procrastinate.
I analyze.
The fear and discomfort stops me when it shouldn’t.
But why not do the things that make you feel more alive? Why not try adventures that make you feel better, happier, funnier, or fitter?
As you can see, this adventurous little bike ride got me thinking about what stops me from living more meaningfully.
As I got deeper into my stream of consciousness, I figured out I allow my ego to constantly need the validation of my existence to be measured by the outcomes I achieve and productivity of my work.
But no over worked, deathbed millionaire probably wishes they were dead — they probably wish they enjoyed and adventured through life more while they worked.
But what if work, productivity, and efficiency are only one small facet of who we are as humans?
What if 20 percent of our lives life are validated by the adventure, fun, laughter, love, unique experiences, and hard challenges we create?
…
So, after I biked, I felt compelled to write this adventure epiphany down:
Our human existence doesn’t need to be validated by what outcome we achieve, how much money we make, or what rung of the social hierarchy we reach—it can be validated by feeling MORE alive in choosing how we adventure, laugh, love, live, dance, and slow down (or speed up) today.
It’s just one small idea, but adventures don’t need to happen once a year. They can happen daily. This tiny act of adventure completely changed my outlook on feeling more alive inside my human experience.
And that’s all the validation I need.
Good luck out there,
Trevor Huffman
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Jay Kudva on Unsplash