Finding Your Quest:
As many of you already know, reading happens to be one of my favorite things to do. I also love talking and sharing about what books I’m currently reading.
A few days ago, Josh and I returned to Florida for a few days before our honeymoon. On my porch was a small manila package with the return address being a publisher.
I rushed inside to open the package and discovered an advance copy of a book by one of my favorite authors and one of the coolest human beings on earth, Chris Guillebeau.
If you’re not familiar with Chris, he is an author, entrepreneur, founder of WDS, and all-around superstar. And in addition to all of that, he’s traveled to every country in the world.
The Happiness of Pursuit is Chris’s third book, after writing “The art of non-conformity” and “The $100 Start-up”. I own both and would highly recommend them.
It took me all of three days to read his latest book and I probably would have finished it sooner but I wanted to let some of the ideas really sink in so I waited a day to finish it up.
To sum up this entire book I would use the single word “quest”
In Chris’s typical humorous, witty, and down-to-earth writing style, he invites us all to engage in a quest of our own. By combining his own experiences with traveling and life along with stories from numerous other people, he encourages readers to find a quest of their own.
Chris suggests that there is a set of criteria for a quest which includes:
- A clear goal and a specific endpoint
- A clear challenge
- Requires sacrifice of some kind
- Often driven by a calling or mission
- Requires a series of small steps and incremental process toward the goal
The quests range from a man who walked across the United States from Portland, Maine to San Francisco. Another interesting example was a young man who completed the 4 year M.I.T computer science curriculum in a single year. Chris also mentioned a mom from Oklahoma who cooked a meal for her family from every country in the world.
While each example was extremely different, many of the themes and specific criteria remained similar. Each person was on a journey towards something specific, with a number of challenges throughout (another definition that is given for what a quest is).
Overall, I found that The Happiness of Pursuit challenged me as a person to come up with my own new ideas for quests and I also loved that the book was full of real-life stories.
The book comes out today and I would highly recommend that you all check it out for yourselves! Click here to check it out!
“When you sense discontent, pay attention” -Chris Guillebeau (The Happiness of Pursuit)
P.S. As you’re reading this I am probably on a plane to NYC and then on to London! My husband and I will be on our honeymoon for the next month. I won’t have a computer so I probably will not be able to do much posting.
However, I’ll try to post some pics to my Instagram
Happy reading!
The Happiness of Pursuit Finding Your Quest
