Are you adventurous?

~ I’ll tell you after the statute of limitations expires.~

I tend to be adventurous, but it is a luxury I can afford because I have nobody depending on me and there is a lot of freedom in that. If not for all the responsibilities people have, I think they would be adventurous, too. But there are children to raise properly, stability to ensure, mortgages to pay and tuition for the next generation, which is much more important work and much harder to get right.

From 19 December 2012 to last August I was sailing solo throughout the Caribbean. Many fine adventures and people along the way. I finished with a wild trip from St. Lucia down the Brazilian coast, then across to Ascension Island and back to Barbados, a 12,000km/7,500mi/6,500nm round trip, solo. But my most meaningful adventure was working as a trauma nurse out of a tent in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Every minute of that will stick with me forever.

I think so, but I don’t define “adventurous” in the same way as people often do. Being “adventurous” doesn’t necessary mean having to go somewhere far away or discover places no one has been to. It also means you are willing to try something new, to take risk. You can stay in your place but try something risky and exciting, have a new experience and learn something new, without having to venture far. The challenge here is whether you are willing to take the risk, and that’s what set an adventurous person out from others.

For the past two years I have been exposing myself to a lot of new experience, from trying to buy an expensive item online for the first time to working on new projects that I’m not so certain about the outcome. Maybe the most thrilling experience is when I left my language center for a tutor no one trusted except me to get ready for an upcoming exam. Everyone told me that I was being stupid hooking on someone I wasn’t even sure would do me good. But I had already considered the risk and I believed in my choice. I passed that exam with flying colors.