The Happiness of Pursuit: Find the Quest that will Bring Purpose to Your Life

Branching out beyond travel, the categories of learning, documenting, and athleticism were also fairly self-explanatory.

The first lessons were about the practical aspects of pursuing a quest. If you want to achieve the unimaginable, you start by imagining it. Before beginning, take the time to count the cost. Understanding exactly what you need to do, and then finding a way to do it, makes a quest much more feasible.

WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT AN ADVENTURE OR QUEST THAT INVOLVES PERCEIVED RISK: Successful Outcome: brave, courageous, confident Failed Outcome: stupid, risky, naive, arrogant

What’s the difference between a hobby and a quest? You can stop thinking about a hobby, but a quest becomes a total fascination. Playing golf on the weekends is a hobby. Setting out to play St. Andrews or lower your score is a goal. Setting out to play every course in Scotland, in a set period of time, is a quest.

You know how you meet people and they ask, “What do you do?” You can always say that you’re a teacher or a student, an accountant or an artist, or whatever your vocation. But once you have a quest, you have another answer, too. Your identity isn’t tied to a job; your identity is who you really are. I’m trying to visit every country in the world. I’

To climb out of a post-quest funk, you start by realizing that the real world is what you make of it. You’ve grown, you’ve changed, and you can’t go back. You’re not the same, so don’t expect everyone else to be the same either. Next, you start again. You need a new quest and a new mission.

A quest requires a series of small steps and incremental progress toward the goal.

If you’re doing something you love, it doesn’t matter that it’s challenging. You can keep going for a long time as long as you’re motivated—just make sure you choose the right starting point. If you’re lucky, as happened with Stephen, your inclination may even become a vocation.

A quest has a clear goal and a specific end point. You can clearly explain a quest in a sentence or two. Every quest has a beginning, and sooner or later, every quest will come to an end. (Not everyone will understand why you undertook the quest, but that’s another matter.)