#TilTheWheelsComeOff: Plan to Break Your Plans

This is a story of my favorite singular moment of the trip so far and of the kind of adventure I hold dear. Enjoy. 

We didn't plan it this way.

When we stepped into the car after dinner, I looked at my driving buddy, Jason, and took a deep breath.We weren't supposed to be beginning our drive to Bryce Canyon from Mesa Verde at 8:30 in the evening. This meant at least another six hours and yet another drive through the night for us.

"Let's do this."

He smiled, and with guts of determination and a cooler full of Five Hour Energy and Starbucks Double Shots, we set off.

How'd we get ourselves into this? How did we get knocked off our plan?

Well, that's just it--our plan was to get knocked off our plan.

From the beginning, we've said that we don't care about any single item on our itinerary enough to be heartbroken if we missed it. We wanted to be open to explore whatever we came upon, or came upon us.

That's why we stopped to lie down on a road in the middle of the night in Kansas, why we grabbed pictures with the world's largest Czech egg, why we pulled the car over to climb a hill and look at the mountains around us, why Jason filmed me running through a field in the frigid morning air of the Rockies, why we slid down a bank and tramped through the snow at the Continental Divide, why we went hours out of our way to check out a bluegrass festival in Telluride, why we've stopped the car or turned around or said, "You wanna?" dozens of times.

Planning is good. I like to plan. But since our best-laid plans so often go astray, the best option might actually be to allow room to break from the master plan.

Which leads me to my favorite moment of our road trip so far, and it came only because we were behind schedule, only because we said "yes" to driving through the night anyway, and only because we said "yes" to the moment when it arrived.

The only light left in the sky was a faint glow of orange above the western horizon. We were flying down the road in the desert of Utah. Our headlights were on, and most of the rocky, craggy surroundings had begun to fade to black.

This is why I love my friend Jason: when we saw the sign for Natural Bridges National Monument, he had the same flicker in his eye that I did. That flicker said, "Who cares if it's dark--why not check it out?"

And when we pulled off the loop view drive, he didn't just stand at the railing, content to look into the darkness from afar. He walked down the trail, all the way to the railing that overlooked the Sipapu natural bridge.

And when we saw a sign for the Sipapu trailhead, he agreed to pull over and look at it.

And when we saw that the trailhead could take us down to look at Sipapu close up, and I asked, "Do you want to do it?" He replied, "Yes."

I love friends like this because it would only take one excuse out of the hundred that were valid to leave this adventure dead in the water, a boat without a motor or paddle or current:

I'm too tired. It's dark. We don't have time. We should be driving. I don't even think we're allowed to do this. (Technically, none of the signs prohibit hiking at night. Not that it would have stopped me.) What if...? But what about...?

Every once in a while, the stars align just right, and you say yes and the people with you say yes, and you find yourself in the midst of one of those forever memories in the making.

We grabbed flashlights and a pack of emergency gear, looked at the black abyss below, looked up at the stars popping out one by one above, and crossed the threshold of the trailhead.

I'll skip past our fumbling around the smooth stone and sand of the trail and the near face-plant I made into a giant spider web, and past the moment of heart attack when we heard thunderous flapping of a bird overhead (and since I'm no bird expert, I can only assume it was either a pterodactyl or baby dragon).

Within twenty minutes or so, we were stretched on our backs against the lines of the bowl that lies around the monument. Above us was the silhouette of world's second-largest natural arch bridge, Sipapu--black in the night, imposing. Beyond Sipapu was a clear sky saturated with stars, with an occasional meteor streaking by.

And I had one of those moments where all I could do was whisper to Jason, "This is unbelievable." How many people get to see Sipapu like this?

What's harder to fathom is the narrow margin by which we could have missed an opportunity like this.

Lying there, swallowed up by Sipapu and the night, I couldn't help but cling tighter to the idea that life is better when we open ourselves up to surprise, to the unexpected, to the deviation from Plan A.

It's not always possible. Sometimes, it's hard as hell.

But every once in a while, you pull that lever and the slots line up just right--triple cherries, triple cherries, triple cherries.

I've found that it starts with two things:

Learning how to say "yes" more to the types of things your heart wants--which is not necessarily jumping out of your car to descend 500 feet into a canyon in the pitch black of night. That's what my heart wants. I think it would be a tragedy for you to read this and think you should be more like me. We've already wasted too much time trying to be someone else or live someone else's life, haven't we?

Start saying yes to what your heart wants, and only you know what that is.

When someone asks me, "Do you want to come to this get-together I'm having to showcase my <insert health/cosmetic/clothing/insurance/whatever product here>?" I say, "No." In my head, I actually say, "Dear God no--I'd rather read the dictionary or rearrange the tupperware drawer." Because that's not what my heart wants. Not even close. But if someone says, "Do you want to meet up for <insert wings/cheesesteak/meat products/beer/coffee/conversation here>?" I say, "Absolutely." Because my heart wants that--good times with good people.

The problem is that we've already said yes to too many other things, or we've learned how to say yes to the wrong things. A lot of us have learned to say yes to comfort or security, so that when an opportunity for something that could lead us to what we really want comes along, we're answered for. Sometimes we have to sacrifice our comfort zones and our secure positions a little bit to say yes to better things.

Riding with someone in your passenger seat who says "yes" is a big deal, too.

Which, in a nutshell, means: the people you do life with matters. I've found the right people like this: I go full-speed ahead with life and what I want whether people are on board with me or not. The ones who catch up and want to hitch a ride are the ones who will continue to help me say "yes" to what will make me most fully alive. Find them. Hold on to them.

We shouldn't completely ditch everyone else in our lives, but these people are the ones who will propel us the furthest, so it helps to choose our time with people wisely.

Thanks to my co-pilot, we have a story from that Utah desert that's better than anything we managed to plan on our itinerary.

Plan to break your plans, and find people who can do the same. More often than not, you find something better than what you originally tried for.

***

Feature photo: ©2013 David Kingham | Flickr

The Simplicity of Adventure and a Word about My Trip

In four days, I'm going to get in a car with my friend Jason for two weeks, and we're going to drive all across the country en route to the west coast. I'm excited. People are excited for me. Lots of people have said something like, "So jealous of your big adventure!" to me. Lately, I've become nervous using the word "adventure."

I'm afraid of overusing it.

I'm afraid of being the tool who seems like he's trying to make his life seem super cool.

I'm afraid that people will think that they need to crazy, crazy things to have an adventure.

I'm afraid that people will fatigue of the term and miss the whole point.

I think adventure can be a lot of things, and it's not necessarily big or flashy or epic. Take last night, for example:

It was one of those nights in which my brain felt cluttered, frenzied. Grading a bazillion papers will do that to a person. To calm the waters, I decided to grab some takeout and drive somewhere, anywhere, and eat my food outside. Enjoy the fresh air and sunset. Takeout turned into Wendy's (not quite the food of dreamers...but actually, maybe yes.). After I double-checked that the Wendy's folks put a spoon in my bag and not a fork--this is a thing you have to check--I started driving.

I turned onto a road that I've passed a thousand times before but have never actually driven on before. Sure, I already knew some quiet spots that would be great for a little sunset dinner. Sometimes, though, you need to change it up. Allow for something new to happen.

About half a mile down the road, not seeing anything particularly interesting, I thought to myself, This is a waste of time. I know some spots--they're money in the bank. I'm turning around and going to one of them. I turned left at the next stop light and swung wide to pull a U-turn. Mid-turn, I looked down one of the streets of the intersection, and it seemed to widen before my eyes, like a gate rolling open and telling me to pass through. Mid-turn, I turned again and went through that gate.

I didn't find a hidden oasis or a secret waterfall tucked away in the middle of the suburbs. I found a fire hall with a big parking lot that sat above a bunch of baseball fields and a good enough view of the final sliver of the sun's face before it sunk below the tree line. This is perfect, I thought.

And I ate my spicy chicken sandwich and listened to music. I froze a few times as other cars occasionally pulled into the parking lot. I would stop chewing and look out of the corner of my eye. The car would hum quietly, its headlights shooting straight ahead, unblinking. I would think, "What are you doing here, you freaks?" and the mysterious figures inside the car were probably thinking, "What are you doing here, freak?" They always moved on quickly. Maybe this is where people deal drugs in the suburbs, behind the clothing donation box.

Other than feeling awkward when those cars rolled in, this "adventure" felt pretty uneventful. The sandwich was good. I sang along to some songs. I talked to myself a little bit. I made myself laugh because I have the same sense of humor as me. And just as I was throwing away my trash and ready to come back home, roll my sleeves up, and get down to work again, something in the field caught my eye.

At first I thought I had caught the headlights of another car full of tame suburban drug dealers or hormone-drunk teenagers. I refocused my eyes in the growing darkness. I saw it again:

A tiny light popping up for a second and gone again.

And another.

And another.

The first fireflies of the season. That I've seen anyway.

I smiled. Leaned forward and rested my chin on my knees. Took a deep breath. Then I got up and left.

I think adventure can be as simple as thirty seconds of unexpected fireflies. More than that, I think it's about putting ourselves in a position to experience something unexpected in the first place.

To do that, I need to walk outside my door when it would be more convenient to stay inside. I have to go down a road I've never gone down before. And I have to be okay with coming up empty-handed from time to time because trust me--I've gone on plenty of little adventures that ended up feeling like a giant waste of time.

But every once in a while, because I put myself in a good position, I stumble onto something surprising: the first fireflies of the season, a meteor shower, a scenic view, a new favorite dive, a new friend. I feel like life is about that--being in the best position to experience something good.

Please don't think of adventure as a weight only certain people have the strength to lift. Think of it as tiny steps where you put yourself in a spot to run into something new.

***

All that being said, I am going on a pretty intense trip soon.

My current plan right now is to try my hand at travel blogging while I'm on the road. My hope is to put out a post at least every couple of days with random thoughts, observations, and plenty of pictures.

Keep your eyes peeled! Can't wait to share with you.

This Is Adventure

Adventure.

The mention of the word can conjure thoughts of scaling sheer cliffs, diving out of airplanes, biking between massive boulders in the desert, running after important stuff with the intensity of Tom Cruise, adrenaline coursing through the body, staring death in the face--and winning.

When I think of adventure, my heart beats a bit faster and my mouth stretches its corners into a smile. When you think of adventure, you might begin to have heart palpitations or feel the undesirable suffocation of anxiety.

Today, I want to deconstruct our notion of adventure--what it is and what it looks like to have it in our lives.

When I think about college and what I miss most about it, two big things come to mind: relationships and spontaneity. I miss how organically relationships formed and were maintained. It was so easy, especially when you go to a school with over 40,000 students on campus like I did, to meet people all the time, everywhere. And once I met them, spontaneity was always the name of the game. I could get together with them any time, all the time. Want to get lunch? I'm there. It's beautiful out today--want to skip class and play ultimate frisbee? I'm there. Want to drive to Walmart at 2 a.m., buy some Mentos and Diet Coke, and launch some rockets in the parking lot? I'm there.

Relationships, spontaneity, adventure--it was all so easy.

After college, our friends scatter to all different parts of the country (and we do, too). We get jobs that require us to be up early every day, and we can't skip out on them just because the weather is nice. The friends we do have nearby aren't down the hall or within a five-minute walk across campus--they live in Ardmore, we live in East Falls, and it's going to take at least twenty minutes to drive there and that's only if there isn't any traffic.

There's always traffic.

Adventure becomes a challenge. Eventually, it becomes nonexistent, replaced by our routines--work, gym, dinner, TV, bed time. Repeat.

For those of us crazy enough or "naive" enough to still cling to this archaic idea of adventure beyond the age of twenty-two, people sometimes think there's some magic elixir we take, like something out of a Harry Potter book, to give us the power to dare, to risk, to adventure. Or they think we suffer from mental illness.

It's a myth, a misconception, that living a life of adventure is all about random, magical bursts of passion and excitement. That you either "have it" or you don't.

The first thing I'll say is this: for me, a life of adventure boils down to planning and choice. I've found that if I really want something in my life, or if I really want my life to be a certain way, I can't count on it happening by accident. I need to make it happen.

If I opened up the calendar on my iPhone for you, you would see little dots on dozens of dates for the next three months--these dots represent trips I have planned to go camping, climbing, snowboarding, visit New York City, visit places I've never been before. I put them on my calendar in advance so I don't get sucked into all the routine or obligation of life. Those things--the meetings I don't want to go to, the people I don't really want to get together with, the chores and the errands and the to-do lists--will most certainly happen to me by accident. The life I really want? I plan it. So many of my adventures are less like mystical fits of spontaneity and a lot more like the schedule of appointments at a doctor's office.

That being said, there has to be room for spontaneity. My favorite quote about adventure comes from G.K. Chesterton:

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

Again, I can't overstate how much adventure is not magic; it's perspective shift. One of the ways I've been able to live out adventure is by allowing room in my life to be uncomfortable and having the willingness to lean into that.

Adventure looks a lot like inconvenience.

One of my favorite memories of the last year and a half was during Hurricane Sandy. At that time, one of my best friends, Will, was living with me. Sandy had just begun to bulldoze her way through the area. Will and I were looking out the window at the slanted rain, the flailing trees, and the streams of water running down the street. Someone had the thought--and I don't remember which of us it was--to go outside and see for ourselves how bad Sandy really was. Once the seed of the idea was planted, it grew like a Chia pet. We said yes, no hesitation.

We scrambled to change into shorts, grabbed our jackets, and hurled the door open to face the storm. There was a large hill near our apartment--we climbed it while the rain pelted us from every direction. Once we were on top of the hill, we felt like we were in one of those skydiving simulators, or a scene from a movie with gigantic fan. The wind was relentless, and I felt like had I worn a bigger jacket, I'd turn into a kite and fly away. I looked over at Will, and he had a big old smile on his face. We were soaked and cold, but we were happy. I think we may have even crowed.

That adventure didn't take more than ten minutes, but it's one of my favorites in recent memory. Not many people in my life would be willing to take on the inconvenience of running outside and getting body-slammed by cold rain and massive gusts of wind. Will was, and I'm grateful for that.

Adventure looks like inconvenience.

This past weekend was the perfect example of what adventure looks like to me. I had planned a trip to New York City to meet up with a couple of friends. These trips are the kind that show up in my calendar--I've made it a goal to visit NYC about once a month. Why? Because I love the city, it's close enough, and Megabus tickets are CHEAP. What excuse do I have not to? Before I caught the Megabus on Saturday morning, I parked my car in the Drexel area near 30th Street Station. This last snow storm has made parking in the city a bit of a challenge, and I found myself with my car stuck in ice (like a hundred other people did this weekend, too).

Fortunately, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise, I have the best friends in the world. I called my friend Dave and asked if he'd be willing to help me get my car unstuck when my bus came back from NYC at midnight. The man not only picked me up, helped me dig the car out, and pushed it while I tried to reverse it, he gave me his car to take home that night when we couldn't get out, got his wonderful wife Wendy to help, and helped me dig and push again the next day until we finally knockout-punched winter in the face and freed my car.

For all the crazy stuff I've done in my life--a long list that includes but is not limited to free climbing cliffs, jumping off cliffs, camping under the stars, exploring caves, jumping out of a plane, breaking into buildings, jumping out of moving vehicles, driving at night with no headlights, setting all manner of things on fire (some of these are sounding a lot more like stupidity)--I hope, more than anything, that I'm always willing to be inconvenienced like my friends Dave and Wendy for people in my life who need it.

That's adventure worth pursuing.

Friends, your adventures may not include climbing mountains or braving wilderness, and they don't have to. I don't know what your adventures may be, but I'm pretty sure opportunities present themselves more often than you'd think.

I can only speak for myself here, but I've found that the best way to live life is not to view it as a series of inconveniences that burden me but as a series of adventures I have the privilege to undertake.

All I have to do is be willing to say yes when they come knocking.

The Labels We Wear

Every day, I wear a plastic badge that hangs on a lanyard around my neck. It has a picture of me, and my name. It identifies me as an employee, labels me as a teacher who works in the building. It's not the only label I've worn. I've had to wear ones that read Guest, Event Staff, and Hi, my name is Paul. The most recent one that has hung from my neck is Divorced.

That label has led to a few more collecting around my neck--Damaged, Used, Limited, Insufficient. I'm not quite sure who's responsible for slipping them over my head--other people or me.

***

We all wear labels. (Engineer. Architect. Nurse. Doctor. Writer. Son. Daughter. Husband. Wife. Responsible. Goofy. Procrastinator. Victim. Screw-up. Confused. Lonely. Unloved.) Some of them we have, indeed, put on ourselves. Some of them we've allowed other people to place over our heads, ruffling our hair, making our collars lopsided. Some can weigh several pounds, pull our heads down, drum against our chests with heavy thuds when we try to move.

It's tough to sort out which ones actually describe us and which don't.

I hate that the word (divorce) is part of my past, part of my story now, but perhaps it's strangely fitting because long, long ago, I swore I wouldn't wear the label of Typical.

I decided as a kid that I would never work a typical desk job. That decision has stuck with me ever since. Not only have I refused to push papers or slave away at a computer all day, I'm realizing more and more that what I'm doing now is even too typical for me. Just a few weeks ago, I was talking to somebody who said to me, "There isn't a job or job title that fits guys like us. We're going to have to create a job that doesn't yet exist."

I don't relate with people who know that they'll retire from the same position and company in thirty years.

I don't see the point in waiting until I'm sixty to enjoy life and to travel. I don't see the need to stop working when I'm sixty, either.

I don't dream of a white picket fence and a two-car garage with a Mercedes in the driveway.

I'll drive two hours if it means half an hour of meaningful interaction with a friend.

I only go jogging if there's heavy rain or a thunderstorm.

I actually think that I can sustain a sense of adventure and child-like wonder no matter how old I get. I actually believe that people can grow more and more in love as time passes--and I believe that despite what the scoreboard says about my past.

I've come to accept that my story includes a few twists and turns, some detours from the well-traveled path.

I've decided to drop the dead weight of labels and identities that don't belong to me. Typical: I won't wear it. I won't wear Damaged. I won't wear Limited. I won't wear Insufficient. Not anymore.

***

I cut lanyard after lanyard from my neck and let them fall like dead tree limbs to the ground. I look at what's left. These are some of the ones I think I'll keep for now:

Dreamer. Adventurer. Friend. Survivor. Learning. Striving. Loved. Determined. Hopeful. 

They're much lighter to carry.

They look way better on me.