“Learning is an exciting adventure”. I’ve heard this quote many times, and I have experienced it. Learning something new is thrilling. It gives us a sense of accomplishment. It opens doors for even more exciting adventures. It satisfies our hunger.
So, given that I have this opinion about the excitement of learning, imagine my surprise when I looked up “adventure” in the dictionary. The first entry is, “an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks”. And all the other definitions, except one, include risk, danger, or difficulty in some manner.
I understand these definitions with reference to sky-divers, whitewater rafters, or mountain climbers. Those are certainly perilous adventures that I’m sure are extremely exciting. Those kinds of pursuits with their inherent dangers have become the standard for adventure for lots of people. But what about the rest of us who are not so inclined to do those kinds of exploits? Are we destined to an adventure-less life with no excitement?
Absolutely not!
Learning is an exciting adventure!
Consider all the things we’ve learned in our lives. From infancy, our lives have been a constant cascade of learning new things. As children, we were barraged with so much information that we really didn’t recognize it as learning. It was just life. But think of how thankful you are now that you learned all those things in childhood. Do you remember when you learned to tie your shoes? Weren’t you excited and proud of yourself? It was an adventure! Aren’t you still excited that you learned to read? How many adventures would you have missed if you had not?
Then came the teenage / young adult years when we were sure that we already knew all that we needed to know. Even then we were learning, although we may not have admitted it to ourselves. We were learning to formulate our opinions about life. We had blossomed beyond the innocence of childhood, and we were preparing ourselves for adulthood. Actually, if we recall those years, they were loaded with exciting adventures! We learned that we could do things for ourselves when there was no one there to help us. We got our first real taste of independence. It was definitely an exciting adventure!
A few more years passed, and we began to realize that we didn’t know everything like we thought we did, and there was MUCH to learn. We can now spend our lives learning and enjoying that adventure.
The one remaining definition of adventure is, “an exciting or remarkable experience.” Now, that’s what I call adventure – no danger involved! Learning something new is exciting and rewarding. Think of the times that you repeatedly struggled to perform an arduous task. Then someone taught you a simple way to accomplish it. Wasn’t that exciting? How about some information that you couldn’t quite grasp, then one day, something ‘clicked’, and you understood it? Wasn’t that satisfying? When we recognize these kinds of victories in our lives, we appreciate the excitement of learning and the adventure we had on our way to success.
Learning is not limited to just receiving information. Experience is usually our best teacher. And naturally, not all of our experiences are going to be positive. Much of our learning is accomplished by trial and error. I often say that I learn more from making mistakes than I do from getting things right. And a glaring error almost always assures that I won’t do that again! It’s like telling our children that the stove is hot. We say it over and over, but inevitably one of them touches the stove and gets burned. Their experience taught them more than all our words. Learning from our mistakes contributes to our adventure. You may feel like I do… I hate when I screw up, but I love the learning that comes from it.
Change is often a marvelous teacher. Change may be scary at first because it involves the unknown. It seems that we think of change in light of the definition of adventure involving danger and risks. But why should we expect the unknown to be dangerous? Of course there are risks with any new endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be scary. Risks are just opportunities to rise up to the challenge. Change can be a remarkable experience for us, and an adventure of success!
Moving is a good example of change. I have moved several times in my life, mostly because of job requirements, sometimes due to life alterations. But I can honestly say that each time I moved was an exciting adventure. Why? Because I learned something. I may not have wanted to move, and I may not have liked where we were going, but I sought to make the best of the situation. I tried to look for the positives of my new environment, and I was always excited to find them. I enjoyed the challenge of making my family feel at home in our new locale. Learning about a new area; finding new places to shop, eating at new restaurants, and especially meeting new people are all exciting adventures.
Now, I know that not every change in our lives will be a positive one. Sometimes things change for the worse. But at those times, we can still learn. We can learn to overcome adversity. We can learn to find the silver lining. We can learn to be brave regardless of the pressure. Any one of those is a great victory, and that victory is exciting. Even if the only thing we learn is to be patient, we have learned something very valuable.
Sometimes experiences are thrust upon us. I often joke, “I was walking along minding my own business and this (whatever the circumstance) fell on me”. Isn’t that the way things seem to work sometimes? These times, although difficult or painful, can offer us a great deal of learning. We learn that we can be strong, often stronger than we thought we could be. We learn that we are surrounded by people who love and care for us, maybe more than we realized they did. And we learn that our God is faithful, always beyond what we could have imagined.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not some great adventurer. The times that I have been successful in my life are due to the power of PRAYER – my own prayers and all the others made on my behalf. God has answered so many prayers for me that I can’t begin to count them all. But I am thankful, very thankful. And allowing God to help me, to guide me, to support me, and to deliver me is definitely a remarkable experience and an exciting adventure!
Along those lines, perhaps our greatest adventure is learning God’s Word. What else in life is perfect? God’s Word is a surety in our lives, an unchanging constant. It is always reliable. It never fails. It answers all our questions. Think about your life from the first scripture that opened your eyes through all the verses you’ve learned since then. Isn’t that the very definition of a remarkable experience? It is the epitome of an exciting adventure.
Wherever your adventures take you, enjoy the journey. We are never too old to learn new things. We are never so smart that there isn’t something to learn. Life is an exciting adventure!
Note to my readers: This blog has been an exciting adventure for me. I rejoice every time that I hear it has blessed someone. As always, thanks for reading.