I’ve started several posts since I declared I was going to start posting nearly every day. Each time I stop about a paragraph in. “So what?” I ask myself. “No one cares if I had a good day or why.” And sometimes the things that were important about the day are things I’m not sure I really want to share publicly. But mostly, I lead a somewhat ordinary life, and do somewhat ordinary things.

Let’s face it, on paper, my life looks pretty boring.

I spend the largest chunk of my time sitting in front of a computer (…like right now…). I’m a designer who doesn’t really get to do design. Before I started working remotely, I was a cubicle-dweller, like most of the people who either started in or have worked their way up to the middle class. It was a nice cube — my employer prides itself on taking care of its employees — but it was still a cube, and still would be if I hadn’t moved too far away to commute. Unlike a pulp fiction hero, I actually have to do housework. I do live a few blocks from a fairly bad neighborhood, but, that’s Oakland. All the nice neighborhoods are a few blocks from the bad neighborhoods, and vice versa. You walk two minutes and your environment totally changes, but the crime and drugs tend to stay in the bad neighborhoods for the most part even though they’re so close. I don’t live on the edge of starvation, or desperation, or in danger if I sit on my porch after dark (well, not much anyway). The biggest danger I face these days is increased risk of heart attack from sitting too much at the computer, or spraining my index finger trying to type on my smartphone. I play far too many video games and my ideal morning is taking my Kindle out on the porch with a nice cup of tea or coffee. Not the stuff of legends.

But for all that, I’ve never been bored with my life. I love life. More importantly, I love my life. To me, everything that life has to offer is exciting. Sure, it’s not “exciting” in popular entertainment terms. I’m not being chased and shot at like in the vids. Hell no. I’ve been shot at. Trust me, it’s not like a vid. It’s not exciting and fun, even if watching it makes for entertaining fiction. When you duck for cover, if you spare the time to think up a witty one liner for your alluring companion, you’re probably dead before you can deliver it. Thanks, but no thanks.

What constitutes an adventure is all in how you look at the world around you. It’s all about finding new ways to challenge yourself, new ways to do something better than you did the day before. Intentionally taking the wrong turn and ending up at the ocean instead of the grocery. Looking for the details in your surroundings that you’ve missed before. When you go through life thinking adventure is a far away thing, distant from your day to day reality, you miss the wonders that face you every day.