I am a man of habit. Each day I get up at the same time, go through a nearly identical morning ritual, and open my office within five minutes of 6:45.

I like the comfort and security of sameness. While new adventures and experiences never scared me off, given the choice between the known and unknown, the known most often prevailed. I am “consistent” to people who like me, likely “boring” to those who don’t.

In August 1994, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a month at the great Wyoming lawyer Gerry Spence’s Thunderhead Ranch, attending Trial Lawyer’s College. Part of the experience was singing a song to the 49 other students. The purpose of the exercise was to take each of us out of our comfort zone, to help us understand that sometimes good lawyering, and a broad life, requires moving into discomfort.

I hated the lesson and (I am not very proud to say) sang in a group so I wasn’t individually exposed. In a nutshell, I chickened out, valuing situational security over personal expansion.

Recently, I came to believe my yearning for routine is wrong. I had, I think now, been running in the wrong direction.

While routine is easy, it leads us to the same experience in the same manner at the same time. Nothing new. No challenge. No growth.

What I have come to accept (later than I wish I had) is that our personal expansion, growth, is the result of doing new things, meeting new people, stepping into the darkness of the unexperienced.

For years, I didn’t play golf. It appeared to be a game of complainers. Hit a shot, critique the shot, hit a shot, critique the shot. Then I gave the game a try and discovered I was wrong. Sure, it can be called (as the author John Feinstein did) a good walk spoiled. More often it is great exercise for a middle-aged man, heightened by crisp conversation with old and new playing partners, interspersed with some good and some lousy golf shots. I wish I would have taken to golf earlier.

A few years ago, my wife and I spent a week in Loumarin, France, a small town in Provence filled with art galleries and restaurants, an excellent stop-off point for daily trips throughout the region.

Our French was limited to “good morning,” “good afternoon,” “good evening,” “red wine,” “white wine,” “thank you,” and “good bye.” In fact, one morning I was zooming by a road sign in French when she asked, “Do you know what that sign said?”

“Nope,” I responded. “You may notice it is not in my native language.”

“Does it concern you in the least,” she queried, “that there is something important enough to put on a sign at the edge of the roadway for passing drivers to see and you have no idea what it says?”

Good point, I think. But, language barrier and all, we had a delightful time ordering food and negotiating purchases through shrugs, nods, pantomime and often, in the end, hugs.

It was a great adventure. I changed, grew and had marvelous new experiences. The week was a genesis of my running toward unfamiliarity, rather than away from it.

How I wish I’d have had this epiphany when I was younger. No doubt the college quarter in Mexico I passed on to stay in freezing, snowbound Cheney would have inspired traveling earlier in my life. The guy I sat (quietly) next to over breakfast at a diner may have become a friend. Taking an evening foreign language class would have come in quite handy these days.

I wasn’t wrong to relish the comfort of the known, I simply didn’t realize the power, the glory, the excitement of the unknown.

Some friends recently returned from Wales. They had a ball, but weren’t sure they understood a single word said to them by a local, or that a word they spoke was understood by a Welsh listener. Any country with towns named Tywyn, Llanwddyn, Merthyr Tydfil, Blaneau Gwent and Mavhynlleth will be a new experience, for sure. So, I am saving my money for a future trip into this foreign land and foreign tongue. The challenge and adventure will be great.

Maybe tomorrow I won’t set the alarm, or won’t shave, or will go to breakfast and open the office an hour late. Something out of my routine.

When someone suggests I try a new adventure, I’ll keep my mind open to the possibilities of growth and change a never-tried-before experience can bring. And run away from my norm for a change toward the new experience.

Copyright Jeff Tolman 2015. All rights reserved