The thing you want to do “for fun” might be something another person does for work. Many of us dream of climbing mountains, but there are guides who climb those trails every week because it’s their livelihood. Many of us want to travel to faraway places, but there are van drivers who spend their days on the road, seeing new scenery as part of the job.
Pause there for a second.
It means adventure is not always about money or distance. Sometimes it’s about perspective. Life can stretch without becoming expensive, as long as you stop treating “newness” like a luxury.
So here’s a question worth answering.
What kind of play have you been postponing?
A stable life can still feel small
I left the academe because I wanted a bigger life. I wanted to meet people, see places, and learn stories. I loved reading, and reading felt like adventure to me. I loved sports, and play mattered. But teaching—meaningful as it was—slowly made my world feel smaller. My days were full, but my life felt tight.
Most people don’t see the full cost of that routine.
I worked more than twelve hours a day. I taught, checked papers, then prepared lessons for the next day. It was stable, yes, but the years ahead looked like a longer version of the same week. At some point, I had to admit that my salary and routine were not going to give me a different kind of life.
That frustration is more common than people admit.
You can be responsible and still feel trapped. You can be productive and still feel like you are fading. You can be doing “fine,” and still feel empty.
Motion is not the same as play
That’s why I moved into professional speaking and training. The shift gave me motion. I found new places, met more people, and heard more stories. When you’ve been stuck for too long, movement feels like oxygen.
But here’s what surprised me.
Adventure and play were still not part of my equation. The travel was often incidental. I was moving because I needed to earn, not because I was choosing adventure as a way of living.
And life rarely slows down by itself.
So if you keep waiting, you will keep waiting.
Play does not have to be expensive
One reason people postpone play is that they imagine it must be costly or complicated. But play does not have to be a trip. It can be planting vegetables and herbs and enjoying slow progress. It can be joining an organization you have never joined before and learning how to belong again. It can be returning to a sport, not to compete, but to breathe.
Here is a practical way to think about it.
Play is often just “newness with intention.”
The sea reminded me what “alive” feels like
Two years ago, I discovered freediving. It started by accident. My sister-in-law invited me and my wife to join her in Batangas, and I honestly had no idea what freediving would feel like. I said yes.
I did not feel brave.
I felt unprepared.
It was tiring. I was learning how to breathe, how to relax, how to trust my body. But the first time I went under and saw what was there—quiet, wide, alive—I felt something open up in me. It reminded me of my first visit to Sagada, when we climbed down into a cave and realized there was so much to discover beneath the surface.
That is what adventure does.
It humbles you, then it expands you.
Now my next adventure is still connected to the sea. I want to continue freediving, and eventually learn scuba diving. I also want to experience an expedition like the one Tao Philippines offers—from Coron to El Nido, Palawan, three to five days on the water and islands. For me, it is not only travel. It is a way of remembering that the world is bigger than my weekly routine.
Maybe that is the point.
We do not always need a new life. We often need a wider one.
Not a reward. A multiplier.
Play is not something you do after you finish everything. Because everything is never finished. Play is not a reward. Play is a multiplier.
When I break routine through adventure and play, I become more creative. I notice more. I see more possibilities. I return to work with energy that feels clean, not forced. In my experience, play does not steal from the rest of your life. It strengthens it.
So here is the honest question.
What would change in your work and relationships if you protected one small form of play every week?
One win this week
Write one sentence: the play you have been postponing.
Then choose one small version of it that you can do within the next seven days. Keep it simple. Keep it near. Keep it real.
Newness is enough.
The 30-day line
On your Nine Life Circles Map, find Adventure and Play.
Write: “For the next 30 days, I will play to win in Adventure & Play by ________.”
Choose one small shift for this week.
Schedule it.
Then do it.
Not because you earned it, but because you want a life that feels bigger than your routine.
If you’re tired of knowing but not doing…
Let’s make one shift easier to live daily.
→ Shift Experiences
