Lao-Tzu, whose Tao te Ching influenced (and continues to influence) my perspective on living, reportedly inked this call to adventure in the 6th Century BCE.

Lao-Tzu (Credit: unable to locate original artist)

Never mind that there are dozens of translations of the Tao (I have my favorites) and that this particular quote from translator Stephen Mitchell may be a simplified interpretation of the author’s original Chinese characters; I’ll just take them as they are above as a springboard.

My problem? What to create as the first post for Calls to Adventure. I performed  numerous fly-by’s with the “About this Blog” section, touching down to draft, edit, add a couple pictures, etc. Meanwhile, my back-brain questioning wrestled with how to begin the blog.

This morning — a Saturday with some down time while our three sons play pick-up soccer in a near-by park and my wife fills camp trunks with clothes and flashlights and gear they’ll need for the next two weeks — I re-discovered this quote.

I stopped thinking and ended the problem; here is my first post.

Calls to Adventure takes its name from scholar-mythologist Joseph Campbell (no relation), who labeled the first step in any journey narrative as a call to adventure. Writing is certainly an adventure. As is traveling, parenting, questioning, going to college, pressing yourself beyond the familiar and into the uncertain terrain of new places, new people, new ideas.

Calls to adventure exist everywhere in our daily lives. My challenge is to pause, listen, and then choose to decide if I’ll answer the call. (We can’t answer them all, of course.) Creating a new blog is answering a call. Composing my first post is answering a call.

How’d I do it? I stopped thinking and began.

Welcome to the blog. Hope you’ll join me along the way.

Malcolm