I felt… (in such an ordered existence) something amiss….
…the fever in my blood asked for a wilder course.
There seemed to me something alarming in such easy delights.
In my heart was a desire to live more dangerously.
I was not unprepared for jagged rocks and treacherous shoals
if I could only have change — change and the excitement of the unforeseen.
-William Somerset Maugham in The Moon and Sixpence
“Yes, YES!” I practically cried aloud when I read this the other day in the tome our reading group will discuss this week. Rarely have I come across a passage that expresses so well the way I’ve chosen to live.
Sure, by some reckoning, it’s not been wild at all, but in comparison with the way most people have lived, well, it’s Maugham’s wilder course and I highly recommend it.
That’s why when people ask me if I wish M. and I had stayed married all those years in between, I answer, “Hell, no!” I loved every bit of the bumpy ride that’s been my life and if I didn’t love it at the time, I certainly love it in retrospect.
Yes, there are times when I look at folks all cozy in their traditional lives, with kids, grandkids, a house they’ve lived in forever and friends that live within shouting distance, and I do long for that kind of stability.
And then I shake it off, realizing, “nahh, you’d just get bored and do something to shake things up.”
LaJolla, February 2013
You don’t have to traverse peaks and valleys your entire life to enjoy the adventure of taking risks and living from the heart. You can choose to do it a little at at time. Still….there’s nothing like the excitement of the unforeseen, not knowing what’s around the next bend in the road. It’s a damn fun way to live.
So, like I say to young people all the time, “Take the E-ticket ride and never look back!”
I’ve (almost) always been an e-ticket ride kind of girl myself, and enjoyed every minute of it (or like you said, if I didn’t enjoy it at the time I sure do enjoy it in retrospect). But I really wanted my own children to do me the favor of buying the book of A-tickets and not worrying me. As expected, children do what you do, not what you say. Oh well.
After a small season of trying to make my life safe, I find that I’m now back on the tram to the E-ticket rides. Like you, I’m not built for boring. It seems that whenever I create safe and boring for myself something inside me rails against it.
I love change and do like to shake things up. That is why my husband and I left the suburbs and moved to a house in the city about 5 years ago. However, I am very risk adverse and don’t enjoy anything dangerous. You will never find me parachuting out of an airplane.
Like Jennifer I won’t be trying any parachuting although that was on my list decades ago. But I have 2 homes I’ve lived in for over 30 years and just getting up and moving someplace new would be enough excitement for me..and maybe a couple of treks around the world for good luck. Thanks.
Like Jennifer I won’t be trying any parachuting although that was on my list decades ago. But I have 2 homes I’ve lived in for over 30 years and just getting up and moving someplace new would be enough excitement for me..and maybe a couple of treks around the world for good luck. Thanks.
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I’ve (almost) always been an e-ticket ride kind of girl myself, and enjoyed every minute of it (or like you said, if I didn’t enjoy it at the time I sure do enjoy it in retrospect). But I really wanted my own children to do me the favor of buying the book of A-tickets and not worrying me. As expected, children do what you do, not what you say. Oh well.
After a small season of trying to make my life safe, I find that I’m now back on the tram to the E-ticket rides. Like you, I’m not built for boring. It seems that whenever I create safe and boring for myself something inside me rails against it.
I love change and do like to shake things up. That is why my husband and I left the suburbs and moved to a house in the city about 5 years ago. However, I am very risk adverse and don’t enjoy anything dangerous. You will never find me parachuting out of an airplane.
Like Jennifer I won’t be trying any parachuting although that was on my list decades ago. But I have 2 homes I’ve lived in for over 30 years and just getting up and moving someplace new would be enough excitement for me..and maybe a couple of treks around the world for good luck. Thanks.
Like Jennifer I won’t be trying any parachuting although that was on my list decades ago. But I have 2 homes I’ve lived in for over 30 years and just getting up and moving someplace new would be enough excitement for me..and maybe a couple of treks around the world for good luck. Thanks.
Life is great because you really don’t know what is down the road!
I am not a Take Risks kind of person. Reading your article almost makes me queasy!!