#BeWild: A Life Worth Living

#BeWild is a weekly roundup of thought-provoking, sometimes “out-there” content to help/inspire/motivate you to tap into your wild, get a little lost, find your path. 

“You’re too serious,” said my best friend. This wasn’t new information, just the first time anyone had ever put it into words and said them to me. I’ve long suspected that I’m not the “fun” friend. I’m not the girl that you want to go out partying with–I’m the girl you want to go on long beach walks with and talk about life with. I’ve never watched an episode of Real Housewives anything, I have no idea who that actor is, I haven’t been to a movie theater in more than a year, and my Facebook account might as well be deactivated. You could say that I’m living in the Dark Ages, but Umar Haque might argue that I’m just trying to live a life worth living and make every moment matter.

Being wild is about challenging the societal norms that don’t work for you, that don’t interest you, that don’t make you feel alive. We’re all unique and what you need to thrive will differ from the person standing next to you (even, sometimes, the person you’ve chosen to spend your life with). Jay Meistrich is challenging the norm of how we work. He found that he does his best work as a nomad, traveling, not in an office from 9-5 (at least) each day.

In a social media landscape prizing perfection (“Look how great and perfect my life is!”) it’s rare to find someone speaking and sharing the truth. But yoga teacher and health and wellness writer Kathryn Budig is trying to change that:

It’s easy to go onto social media and look at a picture of a smiling, pretty person and think they have it all. I think that is when social media gets really, really dangerous. We want to have the lives of other people we don’t even know. But they could be going home and crying every single night. So if I can pack as much truth into my pictures as possible, I think that might help.

With the pace and pact-nature of modern life, it can be difficult to imagine how you might fit in more adventure. Who has time for adventure? You do. You just don’t know it. Adventures don’t have to be big: cooking a new recipe, sleeping outside on your porch, spotting a shooting start–these are all adventures. Alastair Humphreys, a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year (now, that is a title I can get behind) challenges you (and me) to one microadventure a month. Let’s do this.

Be wild….

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