Seeing life as an adventure - boring bits included

Sometimes it seems like our lives are made up of a seemingly random occurrence of events. We mark some of our experiences down as mundane and unremarkable, and others become stories of adventure and excitement for the people around us.

Let's take some adventures that I've had in my life so far.

I've ridden a donkey in Petra and got stuck in a donkey-camel-horse traffic jam, got proposed to in Ghana amidst  severe food poisoning (not by Mr Meg),  leaned my boobs against Bill Gates during a photo op for the Global Poverty Project and trained as an advanced laughter yoga facilitator.

They're pretty funny stories and good fun to tell. But those experiences alone don't even add up to 1% of who I am or how I spend my time and live my life. Those experiences tell some of my story, but leave out the vast amount. They leave out daily chores, habits, and how I spent my downtime which might be pretty dull for some.

And that's the problem with only viewing the interesting bits in life as an adventure, instead of the whole thing.

While we're now able to see more vividly into people's lives, what we end up seeing is a showcase of people's lives in their extremes. Look at Facebook as an example.

On our news feeds, we see the excitement: the cocktails, the holidays and the cute baby/puppy pics, and we see the tragedy: the redundancies, loss of a family member and the really shit times.

The mundane and the every day are completely ignored in favour of epic stories of adventure.

And it can be really hard to merge the two and see them as part of the same story.

Like future tripping, we spend so long planning for adventures, and looking forward to the times that are exciting that we don't enjoy the present.

Not only that, adventure becomes linked to things that cost money and we have to travel to far away places for. The mundane what we fill our day to day life with becomes the padding in between?

But that padding? That is the stuff that makes us human. Decisions we make on a daily basis and the way we choose to live our lives. The way we treat strangers. The times when getting out of bed feels impossible and we just want to put the duvets over our heads.

Sure, talking about those things is vulnerable and scary, but they're what connects us. They help us become relatable, rather than an entertaining story.

[Tweet "When you start to think of your life more of an adventure rather than a mixture of random experiences, some positive, some negative, it all starts to make sense."]

Like Ronan Keating kept telling us (and telling us and telling us) in the year 2000, life is a rollercoaster, just gotta ride it.

What happens when you make a change from a place of hope, not fear

I talked a while ago on here about being guilty of future tripping. Getting so lost in what we want to do in the future, and not focusing on the present. I also mentioned that I had big changes which I would share when I was ready. And I'm ready.

Turning my life upside down

In December, I handed in my notice to my permanent job. In January, I handed in my notice on my house. And in March, I'm going to be moving to London in with my other half's family for a while, to save up to go travelling.

I have literally turned my life upside down, and it’s pretty fucking terrifying.

I have moments where I just sit here and think when the hell did I get so brave. I also have times where the more rational side of me comes out wonders what the hell I'm doing.

But you know what? I'm going to be honest - my life situation - up until the I made the decision to really shake shit up - hasn't been serving me.

I'd been thinking about a change for a long time, but I was just too scared to jump. And when I say jump, the options I saw available to me were changing my job, and moving somewhere cheaper. They weren’t both, and moving across the country, and making my dreams of travelling a reality.

All that time thinking about the need to shake things up, I was seriously scared of change. I'd rather be miserable most of the time than take a leap into the unknown.

Sobbing and decisions

One evening in December, I just came home and sobbed. I felt really trapped. The realisation that we'd got a house which was beautiful, but was putting a lot of pressure on us financially and limiting our choices was starting to dawn on me. And the situation I was in employment wise just wasn't serving me anymore, and was simply making me miserable.

The two main and concrete things I had made clear decisions on in my life - where to live and where to work, were just draining

me.

But it wasn’t as movie-like as it sounds like - as if a rock just fell on my head and I woke up to face the music.

It was a long time coming, and it was an evening of really painful desperation, clinging onto any hope of things changing I could get.

It had always been my dream to go travelling and I’d started to believe it was never going to happen. The years were creeping by and I was putting it off for security, something I thought I wanted.

And security became a great excuse for not acting on my dreams, and staying in shit situations that I knew weren’t good for me.

A lot of the motivation for change came from knowing that the only thing stopping me was me

Fear's been what's kept me in my situation longer than was good for me.

I was only able to make the active decisions from a place of real hope rather than out of fear.

Taking risks

Yeah, of course it was a risk handing in my notice on both my job and my house, but luckily we're in the situation where we've got families who are being really emotionally supportive and won't see us homeless.

And I'm completely aware that if it wasn't for that, then our options would have been much more limited, and we're really lucky to have such supportive people around us.

But thankfully, it’s all worked out.

Panic number one has been handled regarding what’s going to happen to my beautiful bunnies. Thankfully they’ll be going to live with my Mum and Dad who love them more than me (I’m kidding, I think!) and who really need some bunny love in their lives.

As for the rest, and future panics, I’m prepared.

I handed in my notice early to have all of February to sort things out without stressing, and it’s working. I’ve got a long list of things to do, but they’re not all house related. I’ve got time to read books I’ve been wanting to read, as well as having time to bubble wrap things and sort through junk.

February is seriously busy for me, and I’ve also got a lot of illness in my family right now, and things are really hard.

But I know if I don’t do this now, I don’t know if I will.

And it’s exciting. But also sad (I’ll go more into that in future posts).

So that's why I've been a bit quiet lately. I've really missed blogging. It hasn't been because I haven't wanted to, but because things in my life are changing in such a big way.

I’m looking forward to keeping you guys updated, and living what I write about.

[Tweet "Sometimes we just need to get out of our own way and take another look at our dreams and really believe in them."]

How I fell in love with commuting

For the better part of the last ten years, I have been getting coaches all over the country.  9 hour coach journeys to meet one of my closest friends, about a thousand 3 hour journeys to see Mr. Meg when we had a long distance relationship and a 2 hour daily commute when I was working as a community development worker.

Forced to relax

During this time, discussing my frequent coach journeys with colleagues and friends was met with loud groans and mainly one word. Why?!

Let’s be honest, preferred methods of transport don't typically involve stuffy buses, with infrequent air conditioning, strangers with smelly food and extremely limited option to escape.

But for someone who has great difficulty sitting still, it’s been another story completely.

Having to be quiet, to sit still with just myself and my thoughts/a book/music forced me to relax (and nap!). There’s something about countryside flying by, dazzling lights of hundreds or so cars and usually a beautiful sunset makes it difficult to be productive, to do some extra work and tackle an endless to do list.

When I was making much more frequent trips than I do now, I really relished the time to just think. Think about different things flying around in my head, not just about something I was planning, somewhere I had to be, something I should have done. But actually reflect, to see life in terms of the bigger picture, not just the bubble that so many of us feel contained by. In many ways, it felt like borrowed time.

Space to breathe

Not only that, it would really help to get my creative juices flowing, allow my mind to wander, and allow me to breathe - apart from the times when the bus sewerage failed, that’s another story.

Obviously, being forced to relax shouldn't really be the only reason or opportunity  to relax. But in a world of to do lists, e-mail alerts at two in the morning and a nagging voice in the back of our heads, this is a good first step in the art of relaxation.

So next time you’re faced with a couple of hours of what I'm going to refer as passive time, what are you going to do? Pack a book you've been looking forward to reading, make sure you've got headphones, and my number one tip, double check you've got something to make your neck nice and comfy when you (inevitably) doze off.

And for those of you who (are lucky enough to) commute, chances are, you don’t get paid to be working on a fast moving vehicle (think of the insurance!). And we both know that if you work while commuting, you  probably won’t exchange that for down time when you get home.

Things you can try

Instead, upload some podcasts about something completely work/day to day unrelated, pick up a book you keep picking up longingly on your way out the door, or listen to a playlist of songs that make you smile/feel alive, and breathe.

Enjoy being you, because you are amazing company.

So what about you? Are there occasions when you’re forced to relax? Or opportunities you could take for some borrowed time? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.