Born to be Adventurous ! (Life Meaning)

Born to be Adventurous — Life Meaning — Express Bold — Kimia Kowsari

For me, life has never been a solid, unmoving ground; it is a voyage across the sea toward uncharted islands. The path of this journey has rarely been smooth. I have weathered fierce, raging storms. There were times when the waves shattered my ship, leaving me in absolute darkness. With no shoreline in sight, I genuinely believed it was the end; that I would never see the warmth of the sun or the peace of a harbor again.

Along the way, I sometimes shared the deck with people who, instead of sailing with me, poked holes in the hull and threw me into shark-infested waters.

I learned the hard way what happens when you share your deck with people who do not match your values: “Otherwise, you’ll end up explaining the obvious, defending the simple, and feeling guilty just for being yourself.”

Yet, every single time, I miraculously survived.

People might call it luck, or perhaps credit it to sheer resilience. But deep down, I know the real secret: I refused to let my inner creative child and adventurous teenager die.

I am a rational person, but I have learned that logic has its own bugs. Pure logic traps you within old frameworks, paralyzes you, and ages you long before your time. In the eye of a storm, logic dictates: “Drown, because there is no way out.”

But that inner child thinks outside of the box. She is playful, she is curious, and that is exactly what saved me.

The Strange Bond Between Suffering and Meaning

I recently finished reading Viktor Frankl’s *Man’s Search for Meaning*. Reading about how he lost everything; his possessions, his career, his family, his wife, and his very identity, in the darkest chapter of human history, yet managed to keep his hope alive, I found a piece of myself in his story. Frankl writes that the Nazis could strip a person of everything except one final thing: “the freedom to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

He survived by leaning on Nietzsche’s profound truth: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

The most striking part for me was his realization that life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose. I have fought many wars on different islands, carrying traumas. For a long time, I thought my ultimate goal should just be getting “healed.” But then I read something that resonated with my entire being:

“The opposite of trauma is not ‘healed’. It’s aliveness, playfulness, curiosity, excitement, and creativity.”

These qualities became my anchors. In moments of intense panic mode, when my soul felt completely off and drained, they kept me grounded. By seeking refuge in curiosity and a passion for life, I gave meaning to my suffering.

I used to believe ( and I still do ) that we shouldn’t torture ourselves trying to find an inherent meaning in tragic, random incidents. The storms themselves are often meaningless. But there is a sharp line between searching for a meaning inside the trauma, and becoming a creator who shapes a new meaning out of it. Viktor Frankl taught me that while we cannot choose or fix the broken pieces of the ship, we retain the ultimate freedom to choose our attitude. The opposite of trauma is aliveness; and aliveness is something we actively create, not something we passively wait to discover.

Beautiful Solitude and Absent Captains

I always wished to share my voyages with great captains and wonderful companions. I longed for someone to stand by my side through the gales. But the sea has not yet introduced me to the captains I hoped to meet. Even so, I have come to a profound realization: life asks me to sail some of these journeys entirely alone.

I am no longer afraid of this quietness. I have come to see that it is within the depths of this beautiful solitude where the most magnificent things are discovered and created. This solitude is not isolation; it is a grand laboratory for unearthing inner treasures.

My Destiny: Not One Island, Not One Ship

I am destined to discover many more islands. I will find countless treasures, escape numerous traps, and yes, I will likely get wounded along the way, and it will hurt. But that rebellious teenager inside me will endure it all.

I wasn’t built to settle on a safe shore. My destiny is not to spend my whole life on a single island, with a single ship anchored forever. My values stretch far beyond the walls of a comfort zone. I have learned to focus on one island at a time, navigate through it, and move forward.

Storms will come, and ships will drown. But the law of the sea has taught me: Build your next boat at the next island. It may take time, it may take years, but it is worth it.

I wasn’t born to stand still.

My destiny is to stay adventurous, and I was born to be adventurous…

Express Bold

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