The Doorstep Mile: Live More Adventurously Every Day

What are your symptoms of flabbiness that are an early warning of a deeper malaise? • Physical Flabbiness. • Mental Flabbiness. • Moral Flabbiness.

Back in college my best friend asked, ‘Do you want to go on a trip? We are renting a camper and leaving for the trip of a lifetime to see the Balkans.’ I had no money, I was scared and full of scenarios of death and destruction. I was pretty sure my parents would say NO, even though I was a grown-up. I remember telling my grandma about it. She hand

direction I want my life to go. So heed some encouragement and caveats from your 80-year-old self. Write a letter from ‘future you’ to ‘current you’. What will they tell you to do with your life? What will they think about where you are right now? What would they plead with you to change?

OVER TO YOU • What practical barriers stand in your way? • What mental barriers have you built up? • Which concerns can be shunted further down the line? Think of the most significant thing blocking you from living adventurously. • Now ask these questions, known as the Dickens Process: • What has that barrier cost you in your life so far? • What is

Sonder is ‘the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own – populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness.’

Am I a runner? But do I actually run? Often and far and fast? Or do I just trot around the park a couple of times a week at the same pace as last year? • Am I a cyclist? But do I actually put in the miles? Or do I just own a nice bike or three? When did I last go for a long bike ride that made me proud? • Am I a photographer? When was the last time

OVER TO YOU • What should you work on more slowly than your impatient side wants you to?

It is much less painful to offer an immediate, polite ‘no thank you’ than to agree to do something and then later regret it. [By the way, if you find it hard to say ‘no’ to nice people – as I do – try setting up automated ‘canned responses’ for your emails. Having a set text to click saves you having to actually type mean things to friendly people

OVER TO YOU • List all the ‘no buts’ you were shouting at me.

It is much simpler to exist than to live.