Choose your own adventure #2

Once there was a girl who decided to try out for an amazing ride across country where she would recieve $3000 plus $25 per day plus airfare to ride from NYC to LA promoting bike culture. After all the candidates were weeded through, she was selected as one of the 42 participants.


She decided to accept the ride. Everyone was rooting for her. Once again, she was the hero, the adventurer, the one out in the front, seeing the world. The life she wants would be there when she got back, and she would be so fabulous! But she wasn't. Every day, she trudged on busy highways with too many people that she didn't want to be with. Sure, meeting new people was exciting, but this younger crowd of inflated idealists who loved vodka, thought bikes would change the world, and wanted to convert souls to vegan hipster ideals didn't appreciate her. She didn't get to blog the adventure, missed her friends and commmunity, and in the end came back broken and tired. Food was out of control, and she felt more lost then ever. THE END.

or.

She decided to accept the ride. Even though she put some things on the line, like a new relationship, a seminary class, time for art and writing, and a relaxing, fun, colorado summer, she came to believe that she made the right decision. The people she met on the ride were hungry for something different. They wanted to hear about Jesus, and the kind of life he led. They wanted to change the world, but some, like her, came to believe that they first had to be willing to change themselves. Together with her new friends, the group formed a community committed to personal growth, inner work, and living a story of redemption. She was so excited about her experience she couldn't wait to get back and tell her friends about it. Her friends and boyfriend were excited to hear her stories, and the blog she wrote was so amazing that all who read it demanded the book...

Or.

She decided not to accept the ride. As soon as she made the decision, she knew it was all downhill from there. She ate chocolate every day and quickly gained all the weight that she just lost in the "Biggest Loser" competition at school (even though most of the weight she supposedly lost was water weight since she drank diet tea, did a fast, and didn't eat for two days before the last weigh-in) She wallowed in self-pity all summer, was bitchy to everyone who cared about her, and alienated all those who tried to comfort her. She didn't write or do art all summer because she was too depressed. Sara couldnt' go to New York after all, and her boyfriend was unable to afford LA, so she didn't even leave her house. She became desperate for movement so she became broke buying self-help books off the internet. In the end she couldn't pay rent, became a homeless street begger, and died of a broken heart.

or.

She decided not to accept the ride. She became determined to make something more of her summer than give two months of her life to some canned marketing concept vodka promotion. She remembered a refrain from a song she once heard; "Where you're laughed while you abstain and your cursed while you give in, its a game thats impossible to beat; but a peaceful refrain God will sing in your brain when you put the nails to your hands and your feet." She knew if she kept dwelling on the decision she already made, she would make herself crazy, and that she just had to let a part of her die. Not the adventurist, just the fearful, competitive adventurist. The part that had to be the most adventurous. The part that already rode across country but needed to do it again, because this one girl she knew was doing it, and she needed something to show for her summer. Or the part that had to climb all the fourteeners even though she really didn't care about fourteeners. She knew that if she wrote a book this summer--even if she didn't get it published, she had something to be proud of. If she created some things she would not only learn some new skills, but she could recreate herself--finding new aspects of her identity to live out. She remembered some lessons she had already learned. Last summer, she was gone the whole time, and learned that it was ok to stay home and have micro-adventures, and it was a whole lot more renewing. She learned from two months at the monestary that you didn't need to be on some epic quest to grow spiritually. She learned that just because you are chosen for something (she was chosen to go to the Air Force Academy on exchange, and sky dive) you don't have to accept (it was the worst semester she has ever had. She learned from traveling through Ireland that even if she was in the most amazing place, the ride can be miserable when she was with people who didn't care about each other (Incidentally one traveling partner would be going on this cross-country ride.) Even if she failed to find a way to make money this summer that incorporated her desires and talents, she had savings and she would take out some loans. She knew she was taken care of, and the decision she made reflected her desire to invest in loving others, and not fearfully protecting her own self interests.