Life Is an Adventure (Even When It Doesn't Feel Like One) [Raw Session]

00:00 — Adventure in ordinary days

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds. I've been thinking about this idea that life is an adventure, and I almost hesitate to say it because it sounds like one of those motivational quotes you'd see written across a picture of someone standing on top of a mountain. You know, life is an adventure. Enjoy the journey or something like that. But I think there's actually something interesting underneath that expression because when I hear the word adventure I usually think about doing something different, traveling somewhere, seeing a new place, trying something I've never done before.

Something gets me out of my normal routine, and I enjoy those things. I like planning trips, having something to look forward to, and experiencing places that are different from where I live. But lately I've been wondering why we only seem to associate adventure with those kinds of experiences. But what about the rest of our lives? Because most of our time isn't spent traveling or doing anything particularly exciting.

We get up, go to work, take care of things around the house, spend time with family, pay bills, and do some version of the same thing again the next day. And that can go on for years, many years. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. People having stable ordinary life is something a lot of people work incredibly hard to achieve. But I wonder whether we sometimes become so focused on making life comfortable and predictable that we stop noticing the experiences we're actually having.

And that's really what I've been thinking about. Maybe adventure isn't just something we go out and do. Maybe it's also everything happening in between.

01:39 — Planning for uncertainty

One thing I find interesting is how much of our lives we spend trying to remove uncertainty. We work to pay our bills, save money for the future, try to look after our health and make plans for our families. And I'm somebody who likes doing all of that. I like looking at numbers, thinking about the future and understanding what might happen if I make one decision instead of another.

Even when I'm building software, I'm thinking about what could go wrong and how to make things more reliable. There's value in that. I wouldn't want to live without some kind of plan. But here's what I find strange. When we describe adventure, we're usually talking about something that we don't know exactly what's going to happen. That's part of what makes it extremely interesting and different to me.

Yet in our everyday lives, we're constantly trying to eliminate that uncertainty. We want the excitement of something new, but we also want the security of knowing everything's going to work out. And those two things don't always fit together. And now I'm not suggesting we should embrace every kind of uncertainty. There's a big difference between choosing to go somewhere new and having an unexpected problem with your health or your family or your job.

Some experiences are just difficult. I don't believe every bad experience has to turn into some wonderful lesson either. But I do think there's something worth recognizing about how little of life actually happens exactly the way we planned. Think about where you were 10, 20 years ago. Do you know exactly where you'd be today? Maybe you had some idea, but I suspect quite a bit has happened that you never anticipated.

Some good things, some difficult things, and probably a few decisions that completely change your direction. And while all of that was happening, you were just living your life. You weren't necessarily thinking of it as an adventure.

03:33 — Getting older and postponing today

I think this becomes more noticeable as you get older. I'm getting closer to 50, and it's interesting how differently I look at time compared to when I was younger. When you're 20, 10 years feels like an enormous amount of time. If there's something you want to do, it's easy to assume you'll get around to it eventually. Maybe you'll travel somewhere later, learn something later, or start that project you've been thinking about later.

And sometimes waiting makes perfect sense. But as you get older, you start realizing just how quickly those 10 -year periods actually go by. You look back at something that happened five years ago, and it barely feels like five years. It feels like yesterday. Or you realize that something you've been talking about doing for years is still something you're talking about doing. And it's not necessarily because you were wasting your time.

You were busy living, working, raising a family, taking care of responsibility, and dealing with whatever needed your attention. But life has a way of filling whatever time you have available. There's always something else that needs to be done. And I think sometimes we start waiting for a point in life when everything is finally settled. That's especially interesting to me when it comes to money, because I spend quite a bit of time thinking about investing, saving, and planning for the future.

And I believe those things are extremely important. Having some financial security can give you options and reduce the amount of stress you're dealing with. But I've also wondered whether it's possible to become so focused on preparing for the future, that you start postponing too much of the present. You tell yourself that once you've saved a certain amount, then you'll do something you've always wanted to do.

Or once the mortgage is paid off, or once the kids are older, or once you retire. But when you finally reach one of those points, there's usually something else waiting. Another expense, another responsibility, or another reason why maybe now is not quite the right time. And I'm not saying the answer is to spend money recklessly, or start doing everything you've ever wanted.

I don't think that would make much sense at all either. But I do think it's worth occasionally asking what you're actually working towards. And are we building security so we have more choices? Or are we becoming so attached to that security that we're afraid to use any of those choices? Because those aren't necessarily the same thing. And I think there's a balance somewhere between taking care of tomorrow, and remembering that today is part of our lives too.

06:17 — Routine and the days we remember

Another part of this is routine. And I like routine. I enjoy having things I work on regularly. Whether it's fitness, programming, or something around the house. There's something satisfying about making steady progress. A lot of progress comes from doing fairly ordinary things over and over. So I don't think routine is bad. In fact, I think it's important. But I also think there's a point where we can become so comfortable doing what we normally do that we stop considering anything different.

You end up going to the same place, taking the same routes, and spending your weekends in familiar ways. Not necessarily because they're the things you enjoy most, but because they're easy. You don't have to think about them. And sometimes I wonder how much of that is simply habit. Because trying something different doesn't always have to mean going on some expensive vacation or making a major change in your life.

Sometimes it's as simple as going somewhere you wouldn't normally go. Trying something you haven't done before. Or deciding to spend an afternoon differently. The actual experience might not even turn out to be that great. But at least it's something different. And I think there's value in that. Because one of the things I've noticed is how easy time can start blending together. When every week looks almost exactly the same.

You can go through an entire year, look back on it, and struggle to remember much that distinguishes it from the year before. And that doesn't mean nothing important happened. But I wonder if occasionally breaking the routine gives us more opportunity to experience things we'll actually remember. Not because every day needs to be exciting. I think that would get exhausting pretty quickly. But because there's a difference between enjoying a comfortable routine and never questioning it.

08:16 — Building without knowing the outcome

I think about this with building software too. When I start working on a new idea, I usually don't know exactly where it's going to end up. I might understand the technology and have some idea of what I want to build. But I don't know if it's going to work the way I imagine. Whether anyone will want to use it. Or whether I'll still be interested in six months later.

And I've certainly had plenty of ideas that haven't gone as far as I originally expected. But I think that's part of what makes building things interesting. You start with one idea, run into problems you hadn't anticipated. And sometimes discover that what you thought you wanted to build isn't actually what makes sense anymore. The direction changes as you learn more. And I think doing this YouTube channel has been a lot like that really.

When I started recording videos, I didn't really know what to expect. I'm sitting here talking about things. I'm thinking about things. Things I'm working on. And things I'm still trying to understand. And I still don't know exactly where it's going. Some videos connect with people. Some don't. And there are days when I wonder what I'm even doing with it. But I'm enjoying the process so far of trying something.

And if I'd want to wait until I knew exactly how everything would work out, I probably wouldn't have started at all. And maybe that's one of those smaller adventures that we don't always recognize. Not every adventure needs to involve getting on a plane or traveling across the world. Sometimes it's just trying something you're curious about without knowing exactly what will come of it.

09:57 — Ordinary moments that matter later

There's another part of this that I think about more as I get older. And that's how differently we remember ordinary experiences once enough time has passed. Think about when you were younger, or when your kids were younger, if you had kids. Or even a period of your life when you were living somewhere different. At the time, most of those days probably didn't seem particularly special.

You were just going about your life, taking care of whatever needed to be done. But when you look back, sometimes it's those ordinary moments that stand out. Something as simple as having dinner with everybody sitting around talking or spending an afternoon with somebody without any particular plans. At the time, you might have barely thought about it. You might have been thinking about work the next day or something you needed to get done.

But years later, those are the moments you can find yourself wishing you could go back and experience again. And I find that fascinating because we spend so much time looking forward to things we want to happen. While we're surrounded by experiences that we might eventually look back on as some of the most meaningful parts of our lives. We just don't necessarily recognize them at the moment.

Now, I don't think that means we need to spend every moment of our lives trying to appreciate how wonderful life is. That doesn't seem particularly realistic. There are days when you're tired, frustrated, or just trying to get through whatever needs to get done. And that's part of life too. But maybe occasionally recognizing that these ordinary moments aren't going to last forever. Changes the way we experience them, even just a little bit.

Maybe we pay a little more attention to the people around us or stop rushing quite so much toward whatever comes next. I don't know. But it's something I've been thinking about lately because as we go through life, moments, life is full of many, many moments. A lot of little moments. And not every one of them always needs to be remembered. And not every one of them is overly extraordinary.

But all those little moments make up our lives. And when we get older and get towards the end, we want something to remember. We want to experience different parts of our lives. And not everything is a big adventure. There's another video. I wanted to do a whole part about video games and comparing it and levels and bosses. And I think I'll do that also.

But thanks for watching. And I hope you liked it. Bye.