“Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

-Victor Frankl

This post is the third installment of a series called “Start with Yourself,” a step by step guide to living your life like a hero on an adventure.   The first one was on the call to adventure, and the second was about why we often refuse the call.  Sign up in the box to the right to be sure not to miss a thing!

So what happens when we refuse the call to adventure?

 

Sometimes (to outward appearances) nothing happens—the slow march of time continues, along with the slow march of misery or mediocrity that comes with being stuck in the same spot.

 

Other times, the hero who at first refuses her adventure is somehow swept away on it anyway.  Or an alternative scenario presents itself: everything goes wrong until she does accept.

 

That’s what happened to me.

 

 

Ignoring the Call 

 

It was 2009 and the economy was terrible, but I had been having a growing feeling that I needed to move to Boston (please don’t ask me why my gut feeling was geographically specific—I have no idea).  Everywhere people were talking about how jobs were incredibly scarce, so after I put in an application to my so-called “perfect job,” in Boston, got through to the final interview stage, and then learned they were refusing to consider non-local candidates, I panicked.  Naturally, being a poor and panicking recent college graduate fresh off a year with City Year (and the corresponding Americorps stipend), I ignored that tugging feeling and took the first job I could find that was remotely related to helping the world…..in Chicago.

 

 

How It All Goes Wrong

 

It was terrible.  Not only was I incredibly ineffective at the role I accepted (it was a terrible match for me, both in passion and skills), but it meant commuting via subway to a shady area of Chicago every night around midnight or 1am.  So every night, as the sun crept down and the darkness grew, so did the tight ball of fear in my chest.

 

Things started to happen, both to me and around me.  One night a coworker was held up at gunpoint on his way home.  Another night I heard the story of another coworker who had been slashed up with a knife.  Most nights it would just be little things—a man hissing down from a dark window as I walked underneath it; a rocking, crazy man breathing down my neck in a subway car until a kind stranger intervened.

 

But other times it was more intense, like when I was stalked from downtown, by a man with eyes like a predator who wouldn’t stop staring at me.

 

While I was still brave and optimistic, meanwhile, my mom started to get “bad feelings.”  As my mother has never been the  overprotective type, this phenomenon should have gotten my attention, but I stubbornly pushed forward.  “I’ll just learn some self-defense,” I thought.  “And hey, I’m a big, intimidating girl—I’ll be just fine.”

 

If I had accepted this job out of conviction instead of fear, I am sure that I would have figured everything out—but I was miserable.  I told myself that what I was doing was some kind of pseudo-social work, when deep down I knew that I was basically acting as a glorified jailer for the illegal immigrant kids in the program—and I knew this wasn’t my calling.

 

 

The Breaking Point

 

Now, I pride myself on being a tough girl.  But finally, one day, as the sun started going down, I couldn’t take the terror anymore—I burst into tears.

 

My sister, who I was living with at the time, was the unfortunate witness to this breakdown.  She had one question: “Why don’t you quit?”

 

Now, remember those “can’t” and “should” cages I mentioned last time? That’s exactly where I was.

 

“I can’t—I don’t have any money!”

 

“But you can stay with me for free until you figure this out.”

 

“I can’t—I won’t be able to get another job!”

 

“You’ll find something.”

 

“But I can’t—who is going to be there for those kids if I leave?”

 

There were many “I can’t”s.

 

I was trapped—not by the circumstances, but by my mind—trapped because I allowed myself to believe that I didn’t have a choice.

 

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Choosing

 

“No choice” is never true.

 

I’ll repeat: “no choice” is. never. true.

 

In reality, I wasn’t trapped at all.  What “I can’t” really meant was,  “I’m scared to death that I’ll end up on the streets.” And,  “I’m afraid this is as good as I can get with the economy this way.”

 

In reality, I was more afraid of being broke, of not finding another job, of being thought a quitter, of being thought a coward, of not being the kind of person who could change the world than I was for my physical safety.  But what I told myself was “I can’t.”  And there are few things more painful than being trapped by a lie.

 

No, I had almost zero savings.  No, I had no income prospects.  And yes, the economy was the worst it had been in recent memory.

 

But we are heroes, remember, even if we refuse to accept it.  And heroes, even when swept off into the great unknown—heroes choose.  Deliberately.

 

 

Saying Yes

 

 

In order to accept a call to adventure, we first must own the fact that we have the power to choose.  To walk out the door.  To say yes…. and have it mean something.  To us, and to the world.

 

This is how to say yes to adventure.  You embrace your ability to choose in any situation.  And then you do.

 

Then, you just take the next step.

 

 

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This week’s “start with yourself” challenge:

 

What small but radical thing could you do to say yes?  Don’t worry—you don’t have to do it quite yet.  For now, just brainstorm what “saying yes” would look like—specifically, tangibly—for you.

And feel free to share it in the comments!

 

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