Thanks for the support everyone!
Should be pretty easy - I don't have cravings or any physical / mental / social dependency this time around. Just something that I am too scared to lose if I mess up, which makes the decision easy.
I think the main struggle I have now is accepting my life is and will remain a cross between the movies Pleasantville and Groundhogs Day. How do you get excited about that? Sometimes I just want to do something risky, dangerous, and irresponsible - just let things get wild and out of control to see how far it can go, ya know? Hopefully I can find a healthy outlet for all that (I say this with my arm in a sling from skateboarding a handrail a couple weeks ago). As messed up as my life was, at least it was interesting. People ask me what I am up to now and its, "oh, still doing the same thing, just working a ton, trying to save." I don't even have a good story anymore! Of course there is the getting married, kids, etc. which is great, but predictable and basic life progression items. Maybe once we are FI and can move abroad that will fill the void a bit. Go live in Cambodia or something.
So there's a void you feel that needs filling.
That's fine, everyone has that at some point, but the mistake is to try and fill it with external things. People always try to do this with jobs, achievements, beauty, possessions, or in your case, risk taking.
You mention not having a "good story", but truly, what does that matter? Nobody gives a shit about the things you've done, so how they perceive your stories doesn't really matter.
Besides, you can spin literally anything, so if your stories are sounding boring it's because you've decided they're boring.
So then it's a matter of actually living these adventures. What do these risky experiences mean to you? What unmet need are they trying to satisfy?
Why is risk taking your definition of adventure? A lot of adventure is low risk. I've had some wild adventures that involved very little risk, a TON of challenge, but no appreciable risk to me other than failing at what I was trying to do.
Why is your definition of "interesting" predicated on recklessness?
Also, why are you choosing to perceive getting married and having kids as boring? There's a reason most people leave behind the type of risk taking you're talking about, and that's because marriage and kids is incredibly challenging. Just because most people do it doesn't mean it's easy.
Oh, and the risk to your personal wellbeing is ENORMOUS. Marriage and kids might not snap your spine in half, but it can sure eviscerate your mental health, sanity, if you're like most people, compromise your physical health through increasing neglect of your own self care. Divorce can also fuck your finances as badly as a cocaine problem.
Now that's personal risk.
To me, there is nothing more risky than having children. I don't have any and the whole thing just looks fucking insane to me. Hardcore, incredibly dangerous to your mental health and marriage, and a HUGE risk of taking on the unknown because you have absolutely no way of predicting if your kid grows up to be a monster.
You want risk? You want to be pushed to your limits? You want to feel like you're always on the end of losing control in your life?
Have a kid.
I don't have kids and never will, I don't have the stomach for that insanity. I also happen to be someone who has lived a far too interesting life, filled with astronomical risks, and yeah, I've got some fucking insane stories, but even then, as I said, no one really gives a shit.
None of this is to say that there's anything wrong with wanting to adventure and to live an unconventional life. Tons of people do it in mentally healthy ways. However, what I'm hearing from you sounds more like psychological discomfort with your life, which is concerning, and I recommend digging into it now before a baby usurps all of your emotional resources.
I also caution heavily against just projecting out your ideal life to some imagined future. Living for the future absolutely poisons your present. Figure out what it is that you aren't satisfied with in your current life. It may be your circumstances, which you can change, it it may be something emotional underneath, which hey, you can also change ;)
Lastly, in terms of alcohol, I really responded well to Allen Carr's book. It completely reframed alcohol for me, and I no longer see it as this fun-adding thing. My main reason for not drinking anymore now is that it's lame, and it's something boring people do to try and fake feeling cool.
If I want my life to be more interesting, I have to *be* more interesting and make it that way. Pouring a drink is just a sad imitation of interesting. It's what people do to prevent themselves from actually doing anything, to keep themselves in their bored holding patterns.
Drinking made me more boring, not sobriety. Sobriety makes boredom more uncomfortable, which makes me far more likely to be more interesting.
