"Life is Either a Great Adventure or Nothing"

Art Model, Kristi C., playing in the California mountains ©2013 Terrell Neasley

"Life is either a great adventure or nothing."

~Helen Keller 

And such is the nature of life. Challenges hit us. We make plans. Then Life happens. What do you do? You make a new plan. So that's what I'm doing. I'm sticking to the goals, but just altering how I get there. Setbacks and a few project collapses have cause me to delay my next travel excursion. I'll admit to some disappointment, but at the same time some new opportunities present themselves. New ideas and considerations have me even more excited than I had been previously. I just have to work things out. Okay, so plans change. You're only mad if you're too inflexible to change with them. So I'm just gonna roll with this and keep moving forward trying to make the best decisions I can with the information and opportunities I make for myself.

Art Model, Kristi C.©2013 Terrell Neasley

I think its this way in many of our lives. Things hit us and we stay down, or decide to quit, or sometimes become bitter about the original choice to act on a dream. Excuses of all kinds begin to creep in and layer a coat of sugar on the fact that we've failed. This is a natural human reaction we conjure to help us feel better about quitting. The only problem is that choice will often come back to haunt you later.

Art Model, Kristi C.©2013 Terrell Neasley

As a kid, I frequently had a tendency to sit and listen to the stories of old people. Listening to the elderly garners wisdom. That's not the way I looked at it then, I assure you. Mine was one of curiosity. I had never been anywhere, so I'd listen to stories of people's experiences and go home to pretend that I could visit those places and experiences the adult things they'd tell me about.

Art Model, Kristi C.
©2013 Terrell Neasley

"As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do."

~Zachary Scott

But I can think back to moments where I would also here stories of regret. They would never say they regretted anything openly, but as I replay some of those stories in my adult mind, you can sense it. I remember talk of wishing they were 30 years younger or maybe talk of the benefits of being my age. They'd talk of what they'd do differently given what they know now. You'd here them discuss an ALMOST achievement, but something came up...maybe a death in the family, kids that came along, or a bad economy.

Art Model, Kristi C.©2013 Terrell Neasley

This is one of the things that I want...GREAT STORIES, from now til I'm no more. And then I want people talking about my adventures after I'm gone. I want it evident that I lived life to the fullest. That I maximized my opportunities, and that I was the kind of guy that did whatever he set out to do. This is the legacy that I want to leave for my kids and the rest that come after me. I want my life to be a model of a good example of the kid who made things happen. I've never had any special advantages. No silver spoon here. So if this empty-handed kid from Texas can do it, you can too. I want to die exhausted with no regrets. I can live with bad choices because I tried something new, took chances, or blazed my own trail instead of meandering with the crowd. When I do face my end, I want to face it looking forward. Death should simply be the next adventure.

**By the way...see the girl in the pics? As the captions evidently state, that's art model Kristi C. Know what's cool about her? She's on that same mission..."Life is either an adventure or nothing". I so love that quote!**