Risk as a Teacher, Not a Threat

Risk is something that I have had a tenuous relationship with for most of my adult life. By nature, I would say I am actually quite risk-averse. I was never the kid who was breaking bones on the regular, or otherwise getting into a lot of trouble. I preferred to sit back and watch before making a decision.

Fast-forward to today, I’ve developed a marked shift in my mindset when it comes to risk. I have come to learn it is something to be accepted, attenuated, and managed rather than something avoided or sought to be minimized at all cost.

All the worthy experiences, all the value that was created for myself (and others!), was accomplished through risking something, whether that be my own skin, reputation, time, money, or some combination of the above.

Learning to climb, ski, bikepack, etc. as an adult has all come with tremendous risk to myself, and honestly, to the people that I care about. It is not lost on me that sometimes it feels almost surreal-ly silly (and even selfish) to what feels like ‘arbitrarily’ put oneself in these positions, for what goal?

Going into our trip to bike across Europe, I am most interested in what I hope to learn about myself, Francesca, and whats "out there".

I hope to learn how other people live, and I am so curious to get to know the strangers and locals of a place I have spent so much time reading and learning about from a distance. I know from my experiences that the vulnerability of bike travel often exposes so many more complex and wonderful interactions with people than other kinds of travel.

I hope to learn more about myself. For as long as I can remember, I have always dreamed about tackling an extended, almost expedition length trip. To take any kind of adventure beyond two weeks requires a pretty strong push-back against what American society deems acceptable for self-enrichment time, but it’s something that has inspired me since I was a kid. Being away from home for so long, I am so curious what being exposed, uncomfortable, homesick, and just flat-out exhausted will teach me. On trips of a smaller scale, I have found that being humbled by these challenges has enabled me to really self-reflect, and I believe that it has made me a better person, not only to myself, but it has given me a greater capacity for empathy, care, and authenticity with others. This is taking that concept, and turning it from something brief, to something where we have the time to try to truly live in that state for an extended period.

Lastly, adventure has always been the stage where I have, knowingly or not, proven to myself about my capabilities. Something that Francesca and I talk about often is how with each bike ride, each night on the trail, each ski day, the scary becomes a little bit less scary, and the confidence in our skill set grows. This carries over dramatically to the rest of the things in our lives. I firmly believe that ritual adventure was the thing that gave us the confidence to quit our jobs, plan this trip, and ask ourselves, “Can we actually build a life that we admire and would be proud to live?” Being from a first world country, we absolutely have the tools we need to succeed, but for more cautious-natured people (both of us), the limiting factor is often ourselves.

I think this is what makes an adventure something worth seeking. It is one of the most honest and accessible forms of self-education available, at least to someone like me.