Yet during busy or stressful times you can't just tell yourself, "Lighten up and laugh a little." That would be like adding "Have fun" to your To Do List. Without a specific action that you're going to take to have fun, it's not as likely to happen.
Here's how we've been intentionally putting fun adventures into our daily routine, despite the busy-ness right now:
- Indoor picnic: For dinner one night, we spread out our picnic blanket, lit the candles in our fireplace, and ate our meal on the floor. Bonus: indoor picnics can include wine!
- Indoor bowling: This was all John's idea. (No surprise there with John's love of competition!) We set up three empty tennis ball cans at the end of our LONG hallway. We then competed for who could knock the most "pins" down by "bowling" a tennis ball. After five sets we were tied, so we played one more and John barely won!
- Six Flags: We went to Six Flags one Saturday morning, racing around the park to ride only the best rides. It was my first time there and I had a blast!
- Dance off: Pretty self explanatory: Turn on music and compete (see a theme here?!) for who has the best dancing skills. I believe I won this one :)
On the theme of living a life of adventure, I just finished reading Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to know how to live a good story in life.
Through vivid, funny, and poignant stories, he explains how what makes a story great are the same elements that make a life great. And great stories are full of adventures.
"The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person's story is about, just ask them what they want...when we live a story, we are telling the people around us what we think is important." -Donald Miller
From how you are living your life, what would people say is important to you?
"We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us that life doesn't mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story." -Donald MillerAre you living a story that others want to hear about and be a part of, one that "invites other people into the story... giving them a better story too"?
Perhaps this book resonated with me so much because of my passion for helping others be embraced by the journey. It's my hope that as I try to live a meaningful story that the little slices of adventure that I show on this blog would encourage you in your journey. Not every adventure is movie-worthy or even fun. Donald Miller talks a lot in his book about good stories requiring sacrifices. And I certainly do not have all of this figured out for my own life either. Hence, why it's about a journey and not a destination.
So go live an adventure today!
If you want to read more about keeping your marriage adventurous, check out these posts:
If you want to read more about keeping your marriage adventurous, check out these posts:
That book is on my list! Glad to hear it is a worthwhile read.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a different writing style (more conversational/stream of consciousness) but so good none-the-less!
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