To Build Confidence Go Adventuring
Adventures are how you test yourself, and confidence comes from knowing what you're capable of
Here’s a definition of “adventure” that’s a bit unusual.
Adventure: A journey into a situation with unknown elements to confront difficult challenges.
Source of that definition? Me. Suck it.
Confidence comes when we are conscious of our strengths, consciousness of our strengths comes by testing them, and some form of adventure is needed to test our strengths.
Every culture tells stories of people who go on adventures and become better people because of what they overcame on it. What happened to the five hobbits after their adventures were over? How did Odysseus change on his journey home? How did Luke grow from A New Hope to Return of the Jedi?
Each of those characters changed in different ways, but something common to all of them was they learned about themselves and developed as human beings (just remember that Hobbits are allegories for Tolkien’s image of the average, mundane, decent human). It’s a storytelling trope as old as storytelling itself. A hero goes on an adventure, and through the trials they encounter, the hero is reborn into a stronger, more confident and more courageous version of themselves.
The mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote that all heroic journeys in mythical narratives across cultures and through history are ultimately the same (what he called the monomyth) and tell the same story of a hero being called to adventure, overcoming challenges in a world they find alien, ultimately being changed by their adventure in some way and coming to a realization of who they are. He named the book where he explored this The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This idea of a character going on an adventure to learn more about themselves, better their abilities, and grow as a person isn’t just for writers creating stories. We are all attracted to that monomyth because we see ourselves potentially following the same path.
“We have not even to risk the adventure alone
for the heroes of all time have gone before us.
The labyrinth is thoroughly known ...
we have only to follow the thread of the hero path.”
Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Stories of adventure, real or fictional, connect with us on a primal level. There’s a reason they are universal in human cultures. Today we have Indiana Jones, The Legend of Zelda, and Disney movies to scratch that itch, but you could also read true stories like Ernest Shackleton’s account of his 1914 expedition to the South Pole. Those stories teach and remind us that we are an adventurous species, and we have thousands of years worth of collected knowledge, memory, and tales to guide us. To adventure, to step out of our comfort zone, to try, to experiment and to risk, is human.
The monomyth isn’t just for fantasy or historical settings though. Any time we decide to go out of our comfort zone and strive to overcome challenges that test our abilities and character we are living out the monomyth. Though the adventures of today may be less physical, and the average person isn’t going out to slay a dragon, the fact is even smaller, more mundane adventures are still adventures and still of the monomyth.
Educators in the Western world through the 18th, 19th and up to the early 20th century understood the potential of this. Today education is more focused on vocational training–preparing students for the job market. In those earlier times the focus (mostly just for wealthier male students) was less on training for a job market since that knowledge could come later, be taught on the job, learned on the student’s own time, or they were aristocracy and weren’t expected to do much. They instead focused on character development, self-discipline, and opening the student’s mind–the classic liberal education. The method used for developing character: teaching the history of Greece and Rome and the heroic stories of the people who made those civilizations into what we remember them for. Beyond the more tedious requirement of learning Latin and ancient Greek it was an education of famous battles, brave heroes, philosophy of morality, and mythical stories.
In Britain this education took on an imperialist purpose. To maintain and grow the British Empire, imperialists promoted a classical education in British public schools. The goal was to raise British (again, mostly male) children to be the best examples of manly, enlightened gentlemen that any nation could foster. Beyond just knowledge they needed to have a developed moral character, be self-disciplined, physically fit, honest, self-reliant, and yet also a team player. What imperialists were trying to develop was a governing class to run and expand the empire in all its far-flung colonies across the world.
One result of this kind of education were the explorers and adventurous daredevils we think about from the 19th and early 20th century. These are explorers like David Livingstone or Ernest Shackleton, and adventurous operatives and soldiers like T. E. Lawrence of Lawrence of Arabia fame.
Students today don’t receive an official education that uses heroic characters and stories of adventure to teach them to be courageous, confident, and virtuous. Movies, books, and video games may sometimes teach those qualities but they are first and foremost for entertainment. However, you can teach yourself those qualities by going for the real thing even in some small way. Start thinking about how you can test yourself and push your limits. Are you socially awkward and don’t feel confident around people you don’t know? Make an adventure of going out to public places like museums, galleries, or a theater alone.
Adventures, big or small, take us out of our comfort zone and force us to test ourselves. They allow us to learn what we are capable of and what our limits might be. How do you know if you are physically fit enough for a week-long camping trip? You can’t have full confidence in your fitness until you have pushed your limits and seen what you are capable of. How do you gain the courage to quit your job and start a new career? You prove to yourself that you can face the fear of uncertainty and the unknown. Adventures force you to confront the unknown. It wouldn’t be much of an adventure if there wasn’t some new challenge for you to test yourself against. You need to step out of your comfort zone to improve yourself. It’s like exercise for your abilities and character.
Every test of your body, willpower, skills, mind, and character will teach you about your strengths and weaknesses, and what you are capable of. Doubts you once had will seem foolish once you know what you are capable of. You will know you can do something because you did it before.
You will also feel happier and more satisfied with yourself if you triumph on your adventure through those struggles. Imagine how you would feel after reaching the top of a mountain thanks to your own effort and suffering. Then imagine how you would feel reaching the top of that same mountain because you paid a pilot to take you there by helicopter. Growth only happens through facing resistance.
“The will to power can only express itself against resistances; it seeks what resists it… all expansion, incorporation, growth, is striving against something that resists.”
Nietzsche
Failure is always possible when you rely on your own ability and effort, but overcoming that fear and trying the adventure anyway is itself personal growth. Overcoming the fear of failure is its own little adventure outside your comfort zone. Maybe you will fail and won’t climb the mountain. But you still tried it anyway and made it further than you would if you didn’t try at all. You’ve still stepped outside your comfort zone and proven to yourself that you are able to go at least part of the way, and, more importantly, you have the courage to try. You can always come back and try again.
There’s a quote from Aristotle that, with the modern Olympics is wrong, but works when you consider he’s talking about the original Olympics in Greece.
“Olympic prizes are not for the finest and strongest, but for the contestants–since it is only these who win. The same is true in life.”
Aristotle in the Nichomachean Ethics
Leaving your comfort zone isn’t easy. It is by definition uncomfortable and unsettling to do. It helps to know the benefits of leaving and being more adventurous. When you can justify the “why” you start pushing yourself. They aren’t just for your enjoyment. They’re for your growth as a human being.
These are concepts you can hold onto for the rest of your life. Age should be no barrier to living adventurously. It is not a game for the young because the benefits are universal (though the types of adventures you can go on will shrink). In 1842 Tennyson wrote the poem Ulysses, featuring an aging Ulysses (Odysseus in Greek) years after the events in Homer’s Odyssey, realizing he is a man who can only be himself on adventures and travels. He knows he is not a young man anymore, yet the poem ends with him understanding that does not matter.
“We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Ulysses by Tennyson
good to see inclusion of adventures for aged. Some of my adventures now include experimenting with public transit to new locations. Many considerations need investigating on how to make the 'last kilometer' connection. Walking long distances becomes less feasible with age. Potential failure is not death, but humiliation - still a significant deterrent.