Adventure

Wanted: People to undertake a hazardous journey--small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness; constant danger; safe return doubtful; honour and recognition in case of success.

This was an ad placed by the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton who was looking for people to accompany him on his expedition to the South Pole. He was describing as honestly as he could an adventure, an endeavor in which the outcome was uncertain, where great reward was possible only at the cost of hard work and danger

Whether he knew it or not, Shackleton's words were also an apt description of most people's lives.

Our lives are adventures. At work, at home and in our communties, we undertake often-difficult endeavours in which the outcomes are unknown, where success and fulfillment are possible--not guaranteed--but only at the cost of hard work, taking risks, and sometimes facing danger.

On any adventure we have a choice. we can try to simply survive it--clinging to the hope we will get to the end unscathed--or we can try to thrive, allowing the adventure to grow us in ways we could not have imagined when we began. Clearly the objective of our lives is not simply to survive("Whew i got to my death safely") but to thrive in it and grow.

Helen Keller sums it aptly. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.