Everyday Adventurist Local author David Silberkleit on how to live a dauntless daily life by Jessica Rae Patton - February 6, 2003 With its Gerbera daisy motif, Silberkleit's new book looks destined to reside alongside the store's "gift idea" display, but don't be fooled. Its message is potentially life-shifting. Sleep naked. Bury a time capsule. Spend $10 in the spice aisle. Ask for a raise. These are some of the suggestions in the book A New Adventure Every Day by David Silberkleit. When one thinks of adventure, shopping for Italian seasonings probably doesn't top the list. Yet Silberkleit, despite having rock-climbed, cycled, kayaked and flown the world, insists that adventure is in the approach, not the event. David Silberkleit has worked as a professional life coach since 1994. Through individual coaching and empowerment workshops he helps people, from entrepreneurs to medical professionals to artists, gain the clarity and courage they need to address the less-than-satisfying aspects of their lives. Silberkleit's own job-seeking journey surely qualifies as an adventure by all three Merriam-Webster definitions (1 a: an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks; b: the encountering of risks; 2: an exciting or remarkable experience; 3: an enterprise involving financial risk). As the grandson of a cofounder of Archie Comics, he was in line to inherit the family business. This was no chain of dry cleaners, no car dealership; what right-minded, fun-seeking child-at-heart with half an aptitude for business wouldn't want to reside forever in the realm of teen queens Betty and Veronica? The heir apparent, apparently. After a few years alongside his father at the helm of the comics cruise liner, he jumped ship, leaving his inheritance and insta-career behind. A New Adventure Everyday was born of the notion that one doesn't need a passport or a basement full of extreme sports gear to experience a "journey with an unknown outcome." This is how Silberkleit defines adventure when we meet for lunch one sunny Sunday. "Everything has an unknown outcome, that's the punch line," he says. "The shocking discovery to me is the more I look at this concept, the more I see all of life as an adventure." Silberkleit's path to writing this book emerged while on a cycling trip through Europe a couple years ago. He had the revelation that this experience--"getting to know new people, encountering unaccustomed foods, music, and sights--could be had back home. The landscape that was so vivid from his rolling roadside arena was partially so due to a lack of distraction and familiarity. If he chose to view the trees and hills--"never mind the neighbors, strangers and friends"--at home with the same unencumbered perception, how exciting might the ordinary task or exchange become? He headed back to find out. The four core tenets of A New Adventure Every Day are these: 1) You are responsible for your own adventure; it's not up to a tour guide or anyone else to provide it; 2) There is more risk in living a sedentary life than a life full of fun and excitement; 3) You are absolutely entitled to enjoy adventure in every day of your life no matter who or where you are; and 4) Novelty is adventurous. Even the most mundane routine is an opportunity for adventure when you look for a new discovery along the way.When I meet Silberkleit, he is excited about his newest endeavor. A man who has scuba dived with sharks, flown a blimp and ridden a recumbent bike through Vietnam is beaming at the thought of showing movies at the town library. "Starting a film series in a town with no projector is an adventure, because of the sheer unknown possibility of it. Who will I meet? How do you host a film series? How do you bike out of Hanoi? If I am open to what's possible, and willing to be free from the significance of it all, they are the same thing." There is something initially irksome about this context-leveling approach. What would my carpenter father have to say about the everyday adventure of drywall? Or my friend who just underwent her adventurous surgery No. 13 related to breast cancer? Is the prospect of war, with its unknown outcome, an adventure? And indeed, at first browse, some of the challenges in A New Adventure seem simple or downright silly. I understand that the exercises are meant to nudge people from their daily patterns and foster self-reflection, but "try a new breakfast cereal"? "Dance with a tree"? I attempt to phrase it tactfully: "I get the essence of what you're encouraging people to do, but let me play Devil's advocate here. Might someone think you're..." "Navel-gazing?" he asks. I nod. "Sure. 'Let me get this straight: My kids are sick, there are cutbacks at work--and you want me to name my kitchen appliances?' It sounds ridiculous," he says. "But there's this idea that adventure is reserved for a time other than now, when there's money, time, freedom--until then I have my life. "I say, 'I'm truly sorry your child is sick, or you hate your job, but this is what you've got today. What are you going to learn from it?' " Not all adventures are fun, or energizing. "If you're living as an adventurer, what is the experience of rejection? Of loss?" Silberkleit goes on to talk about his latest adventurous-living workshop, which he facilitated via conference call for housebound senior citizens. "If adventure truly resides within, what are the possibilities for supporting this population that has lost health and well-being?" He asked people to recount the most adventurous times in their lives. One woman told of visiting Jamaica in the '50s and tasting breadfruit. Another recalled flying a small plane under the Brooklyn Bridge. One story kindled another and the excitement of the group was evident. Silberkleit then posed the question, "How do we find that spirit now?" Some ideas: Acquire a houseplant and observe it. Change its location. When does it blossom? How often does it need water? Have a cooking adventure. While other senses have diminished, the power to taste is still going strong. Try a new cuisine or reacquaint oneself with something enjoyed long ago. One might have restricted mobility, but small adjustments can change a room dramatically. Open the blinds. Change the lighting. With its Gerbera daisy motif and boxy shape, A New Adventure Every Day looks destined to reside alongside quotation compilations and mini book lights on the store's "gift idea" display. Don't be fooled by the sun-shiny design or seemingly superfluous nature of some of the adventures. It is a fun and easy read, brief missives interspersed with Silberkleit's well-penned personal essays, but it is also potentially life-shifting. I found that any skepticism dissipated as soon as I put the book to work. So it isn't bungee jumping, but my clammy hands told me that to "call a new person every day" registered as risk. Shortly after reading "spend an entire day listening to your internal guidance system," I followed my gut to a store I never shop in and ran into a friend I had lost track of. "Become a money expert" was next. This was the mental equivalent of a bull fight, in my book, but I forced my way through a couple finance-for-dummies-type books. Now I find myself tuning into talk radio economic programs that used to put me to sleep at the wheel--and understanding them. I swear my heart rate even goes up. I ask Silberkleit to define boredom. "Failure to remember that all of life is adventurous." "Have you ever been bored?" He doesn't hesitate. "No." With that, he points out the window to a black and white cat across the street who is playing by itself. The cat hurls an unseen something upwards, pounces after it, and crouches still, an unsprung coil, in the pale winter grass.