If youre stuck, take an adventure

If youre stuck, take an adventure If youre out of work, or your job is so annoying that you wish you were out of work, then its time to take an adventure. Some might say that an adventures is an expensive, childish way to avoid reality. This is partly true. But who cares? The reality of adulthood is hard. There are no teachers stroking your ego with As, there are no parents making sure youre doing fun and challenging activities every afternoon. So it is no surprise that putting off adulthood looks appealing. In fact, taking an adventure to see how other people do their lives is a good first step into adulthood because there is no better way to choose your life than to see how other people live. There are some great things you can accomplish while youre adventuring: You can use an adventure as a way out of a bad job. Its very hard to quit a job when you have nothing else lined up. But its very hard to line up a new job while youre working at your current job. So a good way to ease yourself out of your job is to go on an adventure. You can tell yourself that you must quit now now is the time for adventure. You can sort out personal problems. A lot of career issues are actually personal issues. Do I want to be a doctor or do I want to please my parents? Do I want to settle down or do I feel pressure from my boyfriend? These are issues that dictate your career choices, but cannot be solved by changing jobs or rewriting your resume. Putting yourself in a new situation, away from the outside influencers you are used to is will help you get a more clear perspective. You can learn what you dont want. When I worked on a family chicken farm in rural France, one day, when we spent three hours looking for mushrooms in the forest, I said, Why do we have to keep looking? Its taking so long and its only mushrooms. Lets go home. And the father said, But how will we have wild mushrooms for salad? I couldnt believe it. I wanted to have my mom buy some at the grocery store and send them via airmail. This is when I knew that although living close to the land looks appealing from the outside, but to me it felt monotonous and intellectually dissatisfying. There are a few ways to get the money to travel. The most obvious is that you should alter your lifestyle And prolific travel blogger Ali Watters has a few suggestions: Dont get a car or a mortgage unless you absolutely need one Give up smoking or expensive trips to coffee shops it wastes money each day. Stay away from material possessions. Before each purchase ask yourself what youll do with it while youre traveling. Ali also recommends that you go somewhere cheap; a month in Europe will cost you three times as much as a month in South East Asia. If Alis advice is too hard to swallow, you might try lining up a job thats an adventure. If you are under thirty years old you might be able to benefit from reciprocal work agreements with the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Adventure is a good choice for a lot of people. It will give you perspective on a career thats stuck, and if you dont even have a career, theres little difference between a good entry level job and an adventure. Both are about learning, trying new things, and making sure you dont starve. So when you are looking at your job choices, put travel right up there on top with everything else. Its good for your resume and good for your life.