Considering you ended up finding love elsewhere than these "quests" do you consider your adventures here a failure? If not, was the value something like "you changed yourself to be more capable of pursuing love"?
I definitely don't consider my adventures to be a failure! Even if I haven't (yet) accomplished everything that I set out to accomplish, I have still grown as a person in so many ways.
My social skills and confidence have improved tremendously since I first started. This has positively impacted almost every area of my life. For example, the idea of networking for my career used to be terrifying. Now the idea isn't scary at all.
My Quest has required me to put myself out there in so many ways that previously terrified me, and now after doing so much of that, the idea of boldly taking on new challenges no longer scares me.
That's interesting! I'd imagined that your adventures would mostly be beneficial to your romantic life. It makes sense -- I can see how the social skills would generalize.
You said you haven't yet accomplished what you set out to -- do you still want to? Do you still have your original goals (and for the same reasons)? Or have you come to believe that the true goal is skill acquisition and the goal's from your original post were mostly placeholders for what you thought would make you happy?
I do still want to accomplish all of my original goals and also for the same reasons. I don't think they were just placeholders. My goals were based around experiences that I genuinely desired at the time I came up with them, and I still continue to desire to have those experiences.
A lot of this is rooted in my feeling that I missed out on these experiences earlier in life, like participating in hookup culture. I desperately wanted to have these experiences in my late teens and early twenties, but I didn't know how to go about making them happen, along with various psychological barriers that got in the way. Now I feel like I have a window to make these things happen, but that window won't be open forever. So I need to take massive action while I still can, which is what has led me to make The Quest such a high priority in my life.
Considering you ended up finding love elsewhere than these "quests" do you consider your adventures here a failure? If not, was the value something like "you changed yourself to be more capable of pursuing love"?
I definitely don't consider my adventures to be a failure! Even if I haven't (yet) accomplished everything that I set out to accomplish, I have still grown as a person in so many ways.
My social skills and confidence have improved tremendously since I first started. This has positively impacted almost every area of my life. For example, the idea of networking for my career used to be terrifying. Now the idea isn't scary at all.
My Quest has required me to put myself out there in so many ways that previously terrified me, and now after doing so much of that, the idea of boldly taking on new challenges no longer scares me.
That's interesting! I'd imagined that your adventures would mostly be beneficial to your romantic life. It makes sense -- I can see how the social skills would generalize.
You said you haven't yet accomplished what you set out to -- do you still want to? Do you still have your original goals (and for the same reasons)? Or have you come to believe that the true goal is skill acquisition and the goal's from your original post were mostly placeholders for what you thought would make you happy?
I do still want to accomplish all of my original goals and also for the same reasons. I don't think they were just placeholders. My goals were based around experiences that I genuinely desired at the time I came up with them, and I still continue to desire to have those experiences.
A lot of this is rooted in my feeling that I missed out on these experiences earlier in life, like participating in hookup culture. I desperately wanted to have these experiences in my late teens and early twenties, but I didn't know how to go about making them happen, along with various psychological barriers that got in the way. Now I feel like I have a window to make these things happen, but that window won't be open forever. So I need to take massive action while I still can, which is what has led me to make The Quest such a high priority in my life.