“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” —Helen Keller
My sixth-grade English teacher Mrs. Holden used to say, “Stand up for the courage of your own convictions.” At least once a week she’d write that phrase up on the board, and I would diligently copy it into the margins of my spiral notebook. Somehow, I associated that phrase with answering questions in class. I thought she meant to stand firmly behind our answers, to be certain and confident that we were right. Something along the lines of, “Yes, I am certain that is the way you spell ‘vacuum,’ I stand by my answer.”
In high school, I realized the real lesson she was trying to impart. Being a natural rule breaker and proud nonconformist, I spent my teenage years standing apart from the crowd. I never played follow the leader. I never tried to fit in. I never tried to impress anyone except that hot guy in my calculus class, and even then, I attempted to win him over on my own terms.
Sitting by the tennis courts one night with my friend Lisa (a varsity cheerleader), I was astounded when she told me how our friends pictured me. “Most people see you as some sort of a god. You’re just so brave and so perfect. You never care what other people think of you. You always stand up for the things you believe in. I ... I wish I had your courage.”
There it was. That lesson I’d scrawled in the margins of my notebook week after week. A lesson I hadn’t fully understood, but seemed to have unconsciously absorbed. As if the mere act of writing the words over and over again had etched them on my psyche.
I believe that to live life well takes a certain amount of daring. My friend Katherine likes to say, “You have to be brave with your life, so that others can be brave with theirs.” And Joseph Campbell echoed, “It takes courage to do what you want. Other people have a lot of plans for you. Nobody wants you to do what you want to do. They want you to go on their trip. But you can do what you want. I did. I went to the woods and read for five years.”
Because of my very wise middle-school teacher, I am currently homeless (by choice), a digital nomad living the daring life of my dreams. Since November of 2009, I have been traveling across the United States meeting fascinating people and discovering my own unique path. I had intended to go back to a normal life at the end of one year, but I’m not ready to return to real life just yet. There is still more for me to learn. Still more which I’d like to explore about myself and the world around me.
Daring need not be extreme to count; we can’t all go live in a cabin in the woods for five years, or spend a year wandering aimlessly across America. But we can all stand up for the courage of our own convictions. It starts with knowing what those convictions are ... knowing what you believe, knowing what you want for your life, and boldly going in the direction of your dreams one small step at a time. It can be as simple as closing the door to your bedroom for an hour of quiet uninterrupted writing time, signing up for those guitar lessons you’ve always wanted to take, or treating yourself to a day at the spa.
Currently, my days are filled with awe and wonder, anxiety and despair—but mostly they are filled with stories. My stories. Your stories. The stories of the incredible people I meet each day of my journey. But so many of your stories are filled with yearning. So many of you are aching for adventure. You have forgotten that:
