The Grand Adventure
What is A Grand Adventure?
If you’ve already read through some of my Blog posts or the About page, then you’ll likely have seen me reference the pursuit of a Grand Adventure and you may be asking yourself what exactly that is.
The simple answer is this: Pursuing The Grand Adventure of your life is to live authentically according to your own ideals so you can begin to work towards and achieve the infinite possibilities that you’ve envisioned for yourself and your time on this Earth.
My own Grand Adventure will be different from yours and the purpose isn’t to convert your view to my own, but to encourage you to live a life that aligns with your Truth so you can live authentically. In doing so, you give yourself permission to pursue the true ideal and vision for your life.
At the end of the day, we all write our own adventure, but I don’t just want an average one, or a good one for that matter. I want a Grand Adventure where I can my own corner of peace, knowing that I built the life I’ve always seen for myself, and that I did it with my own two hands.
By following along on this journey, I hope you will find your own inspiration and will start working to build a life that you can one day look back on and say:
I lived a full life. One that was true to me.
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“Here’s the thing about stories: they need to be written. And, ultimately, we will all write one.
Now, I know I’d like to write myself a novel with many chapters and tons of twists and turns. Maybe a short story is more your style. The length of your adventure isn’t as important as the adventures that take place.
Have an adventure. Write a story.
Remember that, in the end, it just needs to be one that makes you happy.”
— Julian Legrand, Excerpt from The Story You’ll Write (July 2016)
My Grand Adventure is one that has slowly been defined through many years of self-work and introspection, but it comes from an idea that I’ve had since I was a child and that is simply: to be free. What does that mean?
The short answer is: I want to do what I want, when I want, forever, with no fear or constraints.
For me, this is broken down into a few ideas: Financial Freedom, Physical Freedom and Spiritual Freedom.
Financial Freedom: For me, this is best described with the FIRE movement. For the uninitiated, FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early It’s based on the idea that with a little discipline, you can obtain a level of wealth where you no longer have to rely on a steady income (i.e. paycheque) to fulfill your day-to-day needs. Through passive income such as dividends, rental income or a side business, you gain the freedom to pursue your passions to your heart’s content without the fear that you might have to sacrifice your standard of living today, or at any point in the future (think 20, 30, 40 years from now).
I believe that this freedom underpins the whole journey because without financial security, it’s difficult to give yourself permission to pursue your passions with no fear. Moreover, having it is lifting a huge weight from your shoulders, bringing you an added lightness and freedom of your soul.
“Having money is everything, not having it is” - The Good Life, Kanye West
What is my Grand Adventure?
Physical Freedom: This freedom is the most personal of my three Freedoms. For me, travelling, meeting new people, and understanding/integrating into different cultures is by far my biggest passion in life. I just can’t help but geek out and be impassioned by the beauty of other people, their cultures and what makes them who they are. I’ve never felt more alive and more aligned than when arriving somewhere, learning the spoken and unspoken rules of a place, and learning from the people who live there. While I do have places I consider my home bases (Toronto and Montreal), being able to change where I hang up my hat on a dime is something I feel like you simply can’t put a price on.
When I write about this freedom, I’ll be discussing my journeys to different countries and cities, and writing about the people I meet along the way. You can expect things like cost of living breakdowns, things to do in X city or other adventures as they happen.
Spiritual Freedom: I’m an overthinker and I’m prone to getting stuck in my mind, probably more than most. Like I mentioned above, I find people and their ways of thinking fascinating, so understanding my mind and others, as well as learning to tap into my emotions is a journey of self-work that I’ll document and hopefully grow from.
I believe that if we could all be a bit more mindful with our actions and in how we treat each other and ourselves, the world would be a kinder place. I believe that this freedom is important so that we can detach ourselves from the expectations and doctrine that we grew up with and free ourselves from the shackles of our society, begin to understand who we really are deep down and live a fuller and more authentic life.
As the website and content grows, you’ll find the Blog eventually separated into these three categories so you can filter through different ideas as you focus in on the part of your life that you would like to dive further into. For now, feel free to hop over and scroll through some articles.
I look forward to reading your comments and thought. Love and blessings, always.
- Julian