How I Live a Life of Adventure Working a 9-5 in the Flint Metropolitan Area

The purpose of this post is three-fold. It will serve as an introduction into the kind of person I am, act as inspiration for those looking to integrate more adventure into their lives, and act as a reminder for me that I am, in fact, living a life that younger me would be proud of.

The last part is important because I have the tendency to compare myself to others and feel pressure to set myself up for a life I’m proud of. For me, this means living a life of scrappiness and adventure. When I see people living out of their cars in the desert like dirtbags, living out of their backpack traveling the world, or working in the peace corps or some other low-paying epic job, I think that’s what I should be doing! These priorities do not coexist well with my prestigious education in chemistry and engineering, which makes me feel external pressure to climb the corporate ladder and secure a high paying job. It’s a big struggle that is impacting my mental health and relationships.

In college I could get away with my dirtbag lifestyle because they were only for three-months stints during the summer. First, I worked as a junior ranger at the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, then I worked in housekeeping in Yellowstone National Park, then I worked at a landfill in Minneapolis while living out of a tent!

It was never easy and there were plenty of hard times - like that time I cried myself to sleep in a tent in Minneapolis with nothing but a Trader Joe’s bag to wipe my tears, cuddling an ice pack to cope with the humidity - but I looks back at these opportunities so fondly. While I understand that nothing is permanent, I don’t want experiences like these to be a thing of the past now that I’m graduated, they don’t need to be!

My current life is a nice compromise, for now. For work I enforce industrial pollution regulations, a job that is a very good fit for my skill set and values, gets the bills paid, and has a good work-life balance. I care about the work I do at my day job, and I have the time and resources to pursue adventure outside of work hours. From a philosophical perspective, my job follows Right Livelihood, the fifth factor of the Noble Eightfold Path in Buddhism. Engaging in making a living in a way that does not harm or exploit others (and in fact, prevents that) is one aspect of living a fulfilling life, but it’s not the whole story. And it’s still a 9-5; there is only so much you can do to satisfy your wild side when you live in southern Michigan surrounded by metropolitan areas and agricultural lands. Here are some things I do to stay adventurous in this life:

• I bike to work, ~10 miles each way. Along the way there are farm stands that I sometimes buy from. I also stop to pick up trash and will sometimes add on stops for things like medicine or car parts. I check the weather before I go but will bike as long as the conditions are safe (tornadoes and thunderstorms are where I draw the line). A lot of times I get to see cute animals like chickens, ducks, goats, raccoons, sheep, and even llamas!

• There are quite a few not ideal aspects of my apartment, but I do have a garden bed!! I’m growing green onion, strawberries, bok choy, arugula, spinach, and okra!

• When I go up north, I make sure to collect wild food when I can. I harvested dandelion greens at the last campsite I stayed at and am currently re-learning how to fish. I’m looking forward to re-visiting grouse hunting and trying out squirrel hunting this fall!

  

• I go camping, hiking, and backpacking whenever I can! Recently, I did my first ever bike packing trip: I biked 30 miles down a rail trail and camped at a farm. Last fall I hiked the North Country Trail and did some trail work, making for a packed weekend. For now, I am a weekend warrior, but I’m making the most of it. I’m also planning a longer adventure in the fall.

• There are, of course, the more extravagant trips, like hiking 100 miles through the UP wilderness and making a 200 mile pilgrimage in Spain.

• I make an effort to go places without my phone sometimes. Sometimes it’s the library, or the grocery store, or just on a walk along the Flint River

• Whenever I can, I choose options that are close enough to walk or bike (instead of driving). I planned my living location so I can bike to work and walk to the grocery store.

• I’ve been dabbling in car and bike maintenance rather than outsourcing always. For biking it’s been mostly PM but I did replace my car’s negative battery terminal recently!!

• Planning out excursions where my limits are being pushed. Sometimes I backpacking and bring enough food and warm clothes to be okay, but not enough to be comfortable. This is a photo from a recent 13-mile hike I did where it was pouring cold rain the whole time. When I was picked up I was shivering uncontrollably and on the verge of losing it, but my boyfriend picked me up just in time, and heated seats and dry clothes have never felt better!

  

• Similarly, I’ve been researching backpacking in the area including the North Country Trail and the Ohio Buckeye Trail for future expeditions. I’ve been marking up a state map with rail trail routes, seeing how they can be connected for a longer tip.

• Making ink from acorns I foraged in the woods and an iron solution I made from soaking rusty metal I found on the side of the road in vinegar.

• I’m always trying fun recipes; I’ve got a variety of cookbooks I’ll pull from as well as websites, and I’ve been cranking my way through some recipes that were provided at the back of a poetry book! I will find a weird ingredient at the store or in the woods and find a way to make a meal out of it. I’m scheming a challenge where I only eat with food that people changed their minds on and set down in weird places at the grocery store. There are hits and there are flops, but I eat all of it.

• I’m working my way through an online 200-hour yoga teacher training. Through a myriad of recent life changes I haven’t always been consistent, but whenever I am feeling like I want to escape my current life I cope by working on the training because I see it as a potential alternative method of sustaining myself. Plus, I’m developing this mentorship/teacher-side of myself that wasn’t well nurtured during my college education. This July, I will be teaching my first ever official class! It is a free community class that will be offered in the city of Flint! I am so excited to be of service to a community that has faced a serious public health crisis and could really benefit from the healing aspects of yoga. This project feels very aligned with my values and am so grateful for this opportunity. If you are in the area and interested, please reach out!

  

• Reading allllll kinds of books. Spiritual books, historical books, how-to books, classic literature, biographies…I love utilizing little libraries and other community methods to acquire books. When I was volunteering at a library they were getting rid of a bunch of books and I picked some up that I never would have read otherwise!

  
  

This period of my life feels like it’s all about preparation—saving resources, learning practical skills, building up my resume. This is what I tell myself to make it all seem okay, but I want to make sure my contentedness doesn’t turn into complacency and I end up living a life where I regret not taking chances.

In the book Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche, the author Bill Plotkin talks about how first, we must learn our survival dance, which is how we support ourselves physically and economically so we can be self reliant. It is only when you have that figured out that you have space to wander and slowly discover your sacred dance, your work that sparks great fulfillment. A lot of my confusion and anxiety comes from the face that for almost all of my life, I’ve been working on my survival dance, and now that I’ve got that under control, I’m looking around going now what? The steps to learn my sacred dance have not been laid out for me like my conventional education has.

When I get these feels of urgency, this sense that I MUST live a more wild life, I have an internal battle between the part of me that wants peace and contentment in the present and the part of me that says I should listen to those instincts. This urge isn’t simple like the urge to find warmth when you’re cold, because there isn’t an obvious physical symptom to make sure I make the right decision. I’m finding out that the hard part of life is understanding where you lie on the spectrum of risk-taking and discomfort, and being able to change if necessary. In fact, there might not be a right answer, everyone lies at a different position on the spectrum and where we lie is ever-changing. We will live different lives based on the risk we are willing to take, and there are so many uncertainties. Maybe all of this boils down my desire for control over my life, and I need to learn to relinquish control while keeping my values and priorities at the forefront.

I by no means believe that a person can’t live a fulfilling life and live in the same place. I mean, look at Henry David Thoreau, he was very localized in New England and learned still-relevant lessons while staying put at the same cabin for two years (see: Walden). But I have yearned for alternative lifestyle since I was a teen and genuinely take every chance I get to be wild and free. The problem is, like most of us, I grew up with a very conventional education and find it very difficult to step off the corporate escalator that was set out for me. I see the stairs, I know they are more fulfilling, but I’m having a hard time jumping the railing—I am already on the escalator, after all!

I also think a lot about location, how adventure-seekers like me flock to the west side of the country. I’ve developed a soft spot for the adventures I find at home in the Midwest. The Midwest is more affordable to live in and is more resilient to climate change. Plus, the fact that it’s “fly-over country” means that you don’t have all the people. The wild places here have a different, quieter kind of charm to them. On the other hand, I think about how nice it would be to be surrounded by people who have the same priorities as me instead of being the odd one out for doing wild adventurous things. We are changed by the places we choose to live, and I wonder if I could thrive more in a place where my lifestyle didn’t feel like constant resistance to expectations.

Fortunately, I don’t think I’m entirely alone in these feelings. From what I’ve heard, your twenties are the time when you realize that you will never have life completely figured out and wow, there is a lot of life ahead of me (hopefully)! It is these anxieties that make mindfulness practices so important at this time, so we can best move through decisions and conflicts guided by our values. If you are feeling similar anxieties to me and are intimidated by the world of mindfulness, I recommend that you check out the book The Mindful Twenty Something: life skills to handle stress…and everything else by Holly Rogers.

As I round out my yoga teacher training and begin teaching, I’m in the process of conceptualizing a weekly class called “Yoga for Explorers.” This class would be dedicated to cultivating a community of adventurous people looking to develop their mental and physical strength in order to explore the wilderness of their souls and of the world. The class would involve breath work, an asana flow full of powerful poses, and a conscious conversation dedicated to cultivating our adventurous sides. Ideally this class would be in person, but for now, I believe the best format would be online in order to gather enough passionate people to make a format like this work. If you are interest, please let me know and keep your ears peeled!

I would love to hear about ways that you integrate adventure into your life and any insights you offer!