I want more adventure in my life
When you are young, you experience all naselang adventure (anyway, I hope so for the children today, despite helicopter parents). You learn to ride a bike. Jump the first time from the three-meter board. For the first time travel to the holiday camp in South Tyrol. Fall in love - Justin Bieber, for that matter - and later, for the very first time in real life, kisses someone who makes the heart flutter. Everything is new. Everything is exciting. Life is a single adventure.
And me, lately I say more and more: I'm not a child anymore.
As an adult, stuck in a fluffy, more or less well-functioning everyday routine, where not so much is so new and exciting, the pronounced sentence "I would like to experience an adventure again" immediately ungrateful. Most associate exactly three options:
1. quit the job, paddle in the kayak around Australia and still open the farm in Africa; 2nd parachute jump; 3. Buy new underwear and sign up for an Affiliate Agency. Alternatively, the dramatically sounding adventure term can of course also boil down so that it really fits into any comfortable everyday life: If you look at Amazon for books on "adventure", you will find not only Jack London and "Robinson Crusoe" but also "adventure mineralogy", "adventure software quality", "adventure Christianity" and "adventure communication - neurolinguistic programming". I'm not that desperate anymore.
But can I keep my perfectly beautiful, normal life and still notice that there is more than routine? In between feel more often, how exciting life can be? Or do I have to go for bungee jumping or whitewater rafting?
"Sensation Seeking" is the technical term for adventurousness
In any case, as the first research by Victoria Schönefeld, a researcher at the Department of Psychology of the University of Duisburg-Essen, reveals, I am not alone in my wish. And "Sensation Seeking," the psychological term for adventurousness, is by no means limited to jumping rudimentary from skyscrapers: "Sensation Seeking has very different facets, and there are also different types of Sensation Seekern." Schönefeld has identified five of these types: 1. Someone who is spontaneous and impulsive and likes to get involved in things with an uncertain outcome. 2. Someone who always wants to see and experience something new, but prefers to plan in advance, for example as an organized trip to distant, adventurous places. 3. The "conservative" adventurer, who keeps pursuing the same, rather moderately adventurous activity, such as leisure park visits. 4. The adrenaline kick seeker predestined for extreme sports. 5. All those who just want to have a little variety in their life, so in principle prefer to go to a party or a concert instead of just sitting on the sofa at home. The five types differ so clearly in the degree of their thirst for adventure. According to Victoria Schönefeld, more than 80 percent of all people are therefore considered to be in at least one of these categories.
I recognize myself again as Type 2, with elements of Type 1 and Type 5. That probably means that I would need the best time and money for a long-distance journey. But what am I doing until then?
"You could make a kind of world tour through your own city, for example by trying out different restaurants with different national kitchens," advises Victoria Schönefeld. Sounds delicious. But not so exciting. So what do all the Type 2 people who live in a small town do?
Maybe I have to turn the bigger wheel and actually drive away. But for longer. Go to India and get involved in a project. Or so.
Is a sabbatical abroad a solution?
Daniela Scholl is the founder of the "Auszeitagentur" in Frankfurt am Main (www.auszeitagentur.de) and advises people who are planning a sabbatical and are not yet sure what they want to do with this time or how they can realize their wish. "Most of the people who contact me want to do something social in their time off," says Daniel Scholl. And that in distant, exotic countries. Many people whom Ms. Scholl teaches in such projects actually come back happily and with a wealth of experience.But that does not mean that there really is something for everyone, as she says: "You can ask several times: Are you aware that in India or Burma you may not have the same comforts of home that you may have cockroaches In the kitchen, or just having a hole instead of a toilet, everyone says yes, I know, it's not a problem, but in reality it's different. " And if the main reason for the break is that you just want to get out of a relationship or a boring job and drag along all his unresolved issues - "then it often overwhelms you to adjust to new, difficult conditions." Of course, a sabbatical abroad is a valuable, often intense experience in life, says Daniel Scholl. But to make life as such more adventurous, it is only limited. Most people would make huge expectations of their time off, too huge. It's just as if life only lasted from these few months, when everything had to happen, and then nothing comes of it. "See, I think it's good to help people in India, but what I always ask my customers, and I rarely get an answer to, is why do not you help homeless or disadvantaged children at home? that's not the much bigger adventure. "
Slightly ashamed, I hang up the phone. Maybe I'll stay in Hamburg for now.
A colleague recommends that I visit Maduria Röper (www.maduria.de) in my search for more adventure, who offers various self-discovery seminars in Hamburg as a coach. Partly you would get there in the advanced seminars small tasks, it is said that make everyday life more exciting. Sounds exciting. I visit Maduria Röper in her practice and get straight to the point.
Ms. Röper, suppose I am, exaggeratedly, just a bit bored with my everyday life - what can I do to feel myself more? Mrs. Röper nods understandingly and answers me very patiently. "The adventure is finding out who you really are, what you want from life, and then getting to know your limitations that prevent you from going beyond it."
Yes, obviously. But also something abstract. How can I learn this? Are there concrete exercises? Frau Röper smiles, smiling, but I insist. "Well, I do not really advise you that because I do not know you, you're not prepared and it's not sustainable, but adventure means getting out of the rut and doing something that's not commonplace, so a little bit If you want excitement in life, you could - and this is just an arbitrary example - dress up as a market woman, take a basket of fruit and vegetables to the fish market on Sunday mornings and then try to sell it there. "
Rarely do I just run and see what happens
I beg your pardon?! Why on earth should I do that, Ms. Röper ?? As a test of courage? "You can call it a test of courage, it's just one example, as I said, but that's what I mean, you already think what you probably think often, when you're supposed to do something unfamiliar to you: why should I do that? can happen there, what will the others think of me, no, that makes me uncomfortable. " I admit that she is not entirely wrong. Often I analyze. Rarely, I just run and see what happens. And that's wrong, says Ms. Röper: "You will notice that many of these limitations that you feel are not real at all, but exist only in your head."
I take it from Maduria Röper that adventure does not mean to experience as much as possible. But to experience things intensively. It does not necessarily have to be on the Hamburg fish market.
One last call, at Dr. Eva Wlodarek, as a psychological psychotherapist, coach and author of many non-fiction books always a good source for practical advice. What Eva Wlodarek offers me is the following exercise: I am to write down six things that I already wanted to do, but have never done before. Not big adventures that are difficult to implement, but easier, the order of magnitude would be: book a tango course or make a city trip alone. These six things are numbered, this includes a cube. "And then make an appointment with yourself: as soon as you roll the dice, you'll be dealt with immediately, or at least prepared to do so, and you'll probably think twice about what should be on that list. It is not for nothing that you have not implemented these projects so far. "
Eva Wlodarek pleads first for small steps, not the big leap into the adventure. If you're terrified of something and really need to get over it, there are good reasons to let it go. "But if you feel a little queasy about a task, then you should do it, as we jump over our shadows, the heart beats faster, and that gives you a sense of adventure, as often as possible you certainly have a more exciting life. "
A little time has now passed since my research.I have not jumped parachute since then, have not sold fruit at the fish market and have not gone to India. But at least I contacted somebody I wanted to see again. That was a bit exciting and nice. I noticed on a small scale how often the adventure is really just to do it, whether with dice or without. And realize that the limitations we often set ourselves are not real hurdles. What you only notice when you overcome them.
I think more than this kind of adventure can not handle my life at the moment.
