When I was a kid there was always some exciting event that I wasn’t going to. A lot of the times it was because I was laid up in bed due to some inconvenient malady. If it was just the mumps or measles (both of which I did have) perhaps I could have let it slide… but my state of health in my early years was a little more complicated. Ah, the woes of the sickly child. Then again, every child feels that way… (don’t they?) at least I think they do.
As a teen it was usually some party… that didn’t include me. I would hear about it via the grapevine… but nary a word that I was invited. Or I would hear about it after the fact. The thing is, I knew at least half of the “usual suspects” that had a grand time at these fun affairs… that didn’t include me.
Before we continue… NO, this is not a pity post. Really, it isn’t.
By the time I was in college… missing out was still happening but I was caring less and less that I was. Missing out seemed less and less important. This was only because by that time I had been self creating adventures. It was something that I had started in my mid-teens.
Being a boy scout provided me the license in my teens.
“Man, you missed a cool party last weekend!”
“Glad it was cool… I was camping.”
I may have left out the fact that I came face to face with a cobra or that a buddy and I had floated out on a bamboo raft in the dead of night drifting out to the middle of the Straits of Malacca. At times I would share the details… but mostly not. It was my own private adventure that they were not invited to. (Hah!)
The thing is… we are not missing out. We are in fact creating our own adventures.
Unless, of course we’re not. If we are sitting on the couch day after day in our undies stuffing our face with ho hos watching re-runs of bad 70s sitcoms thinking adventure will come knocking on our door… well, it’s not… having an adventure, that is. I guess being convinced you are having a heart attack, getting a ride in an ambulance to find out you only had bad heartburn counts as an adventure.
You got to create it for yourself. I look back… and I’ve had some. Some grand ones at that. Now I have become more discerning… I pick and choose the ones I want to have.
The upside of all of this is… it is never too late. And it is never too late… unless it is too late.