Choose Adventure!

Since launching the new “brand” I’ve had a few people ask why I am so adventurous all of a sudden when I didn’t seem to be before? Why it seems I all of a sudden enjoy hiking and the outdoors, and why before I never seemed to embrace doing these things? Why this “risk going too far” attitude never came through before? I understand! It has definitely been a newer part of my life recently,  I even doubted using adventurous as part of my branding a few times because of how popular it is right now amongst photographers and other forms of media. But I assure you it’s always been a part of who I am.

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The honest truth is I am happiest when I choose adventure. My birthday is the perfect example of this. It was a gray, wet and chilly day. Trust me, that couch was calling to me LOUDLY. The idea of cuddling up with Marco on the couch and binge watching Netflix with coffee and chocolate all day was so much more appealing at 7am than doing a hike outside with a forecast of heavy rain! A thousand excuses to not go were going through my head. “It’s supposed to rain.” “Maybe we could go next week when the weather will be nicer?” “What if we waited and went in the summer when we could add in a swim?” “What if we aren’t back in time?” or the best one “think of how amazing an entire kid free day on the couch would be?! Cuddling! Catching up on our TV shows?! Let’s do that instead! pleeeeeeeaaaase?”

The excuses filled my head to the point where I almost voiced them. I am so glad I bit my tongue and kept them in….because that was one of my favourite days of the year so far. It was the most fun I’ve had with Marco in awhile! It was one of my best birthdays, and I gained memories that I wouldn’t have gotten from spending the entire day on the couch.

I realized something profound over the last few months, happiness isn’t something that just happens. It’s not something that just hits you upside the head when you least expect it. It’s something you have to CHOOSE everyday. It’s something you have to actively pursue. (Remember the movie!?) It’s something that sometimes goes against what you actually want to do, but you still do it anyways because you know it will make you happy. It seems backwards, doing something you don’t really want to do at the time, but you do it anyway because it WILL bring happiness.

To me that’s living an active lifestyle that has me outdoors lots, exploring new places and trying new things. It’s choosing adventure, it’s risking going too far, it’s making the decision to go do something other than just staying home. It is freakin hard some most days, and somedays the couch does win, and I am learning that’s also okay! It’s glorious on those days when I am tired and grumpy. But that can’t be my life….and it slowly was becoming my life. The stay at home, never doing anything, giving into my excuses of “let’s do it another day” and then unhappiness DID hit me upside the head and I realized the ONLY way to get out of it was to change, to make better decisions, to make harder decisions, and to do the things that I didn’t really want to do.

Lindeman-35

 

It is still a struggle every single day to choose to do what I know will make me happy, over what’s easiest, what’s most convenient. (#thestruggleisreal ;) But I believe through and through that happiness is worth it. I believe that I am worth having the life I dream of and I want to live in such a way that will inspire my kids to grow up knowing they can do the same.

I know I have many days where the couch wins and where I let the excuses be voiced, but my goal is to make those days fewer and further between and to embrace them when they do happen! There is only so much adventuring one can have before brain, and body need a rest.  It’s all part of living life fully….the mentality that wherever you are, you’re ALL THERE.

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