Last weekend I did something pretty crazy.
 
I spent some active rest days on a road trip with a friend of mine who is looking for a real life treasure.  We drove for more than 26 hours over the course of 3 days, and wandered around in the wilderness for a REALLY long time.
 
The treasure we were looking for is worth up to 5 million dollars, and people have been looking for it since 2010, so it will likely come as no surprise to you that we didn't find it.
 
I'll admit that I did quite a bit of daydreaming about what life would be like if we actually found a box full of gold.  But in the end, all I came away with were some great memories, a closer friendship, and a reminder that there are no easy paths.
 
Here's the thing about life...
 
Whether you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth, or you've always been well below the poverty line, life isn't easy.
 
Finding the treasure would have been fun, but it wouldn't have fixed all our problems.  If money fixed all the world's problems, we wouldn't see so much tragedy spread across so many different levels of income, status, and power.

 
Trailer park meth-heads, and chart topping rock stars can both overdose.
 
Wildly successful power couples, and humble, hard working ministers have both watched their marriages fall apart.
 
The charm of the sweetest children, and the orders of bloodthirsty dictators are both powerless in the face of a terminal illness.

 
Soooo... where was that adventure we were talking about again?

 
If you're feeling like the title of this this article just threw you a nasty curve-ball, hang with me for a few more moments.

 
It's actually pretty freeing to know that things are hard for everyone.  When we realize we're not alone, and that there is no easy-street, we get to ask the following question...

 
"What would I be willing to do anything for?"

 
When you answer that question, you become the character in a much more interesting story.

 
Before that question is answered, we're just people rolling with random punches.

 
On the other hand...

 
When you know what you'd do anything for, you get to start an adventure.

 
Adventure may sound like a happy little word, but any good adventure is full of conflict, and adversity.  We don't watch movies about people with positively wonderful lives who are rewarded with more and more good fortune for 2 hours straight.

 
We watch movies that beat the tar out of their main characters.  Main characters get put in concentration camps, they get bullied, they get double crossed, and sometimes, if it's a really great story, they die.

 
We cannot avoid conflict and adversity, but we CAN choose the path down which the conflict and adversity will present itself.

 
Maybe you've lost track of your health, and you'd be willing to do anything to get it back.

 
Maybe you'd be willing to do anything to give your kids the stable loving childhood you missed out on.

 
Maybe you'd be willing to do anything to stop a certain group of people from being mistreated.

 
Life will be hard whether you live an amazing story, or not. You might as well settle on a noble pursuit, right?

 
We need more main characters.  We need people with passion, talent, and purpose.

 
We need you to choose your own adventure.

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P.S.  Great stories are also full of things like light sabers, magic wands, and golden lassos. :)
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