“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
Helen Keller- 1880–1968
Helen Keller was an American author, lecturer, and political activist, perhaps best known as the deafblind girl who, through extraordinary perseverance and the help of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, learned to communicate and ultimately changed the world’s understanding of disability, resilience, and human potential.
The word adventure has a rich etymology that traces back to the Latin verb advenire, meaning "to arrive" or "to happen to".
Where across the course of your day today, could you consider where it might be that life is trying to happen to you, but you're too busy trying to control it to let it arrive?
In its earliest use, an adventure wasn’t something you sought.
It was something that found you.
Something that happened to you.
It’s easy to forget this in a world obsessed with curated goals and five-year plans. We chase certainty, strategy, and outcomes.
But perhaps some of the most pivotal moments of our lives, the turning points, the revelations, the reinventions, arrive not by plan, but by happenstance.
That soft collision of time, chance, and readiness.
Where across the course of your day today, could you consider where it might be that you plan time for unplanned happenstance?
I block out time in my calendar under the title “me time”. This time is not necessarily dedicated to anything in particular, but it is where many of my adventures happen.
Your deepest growth may not necessarily be hiding in your goals, but waiting in your interruptions. The unscripted moments that demand presence over planning.
Uncertainty isn’t a threat to be managed. It’s an invitation to be met with open hands.
Adventure rarely arrives with a map, a guarantee, or a timeline. It appears unannounced, asking only for your willingness to participate.
Where across the course of your day today, could you consider where it might be that you plan an adventure for the weekend with an open agenda for what may come?
Life is short.
Let life arrive. Even the parts you didn’t order. Especially those.
That’s where the real story begins.
Curiously, adventure was originally about what might happen, not what you plan to happen.
A perfect word for personal transformation, rooted in surrender, not just strategy. A recalibration, not just a route.
While you’re thinking about that, think about this and have a Gr8 day!
Be well.
DL
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. Adventure is not outside man; it is within.”
André Gide - 1869 - 1951.