Mid-Life and Senior Adventures
© 1998 Dick Wulf, MSW, LCSW

There are many kinds of adventures in life, many of them for older people. I am 57 and in the process of changing my lifestyle because of growing older and not enjoying the health I once had.

Here is a sampling of ideas of adventures. Maybe some of these ideas can be of help. I hope so. I can’t guarantee that they are good ideas for you. You’ll have to think about them and try some out.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Types of Adventuring for Mid-Life and Beyond: scroll down to portion you want to examine

Game Adventuring
Grandparenting Adventures
Health Adventures
Helping Adventures
Hospitality Adventures
Internet Adventuring
Miscellaneous Variety
Money-Making Adventuring
Neighborhood Adventures
Reading Adventures
Sightseeing Around Town Adventures
Thinking Adventures
Travel Adventuring
Travel Television Shows
Walking Tours
Writing Adventures

GAME ADVENTURING

Find one card game that you like well enough to play at least every other day for a month.

Play miniature golf enough times until you improve your initial score three times.

Do one crossword puzzle a week for two months.

Put together three jigsaw puzzles.

Play shuffleboard once a week for a month.

Find and play ten different video games on your computer.

Play five games you enjoyed as a child, either with other adults of with children.

Find a new game to enjoy by searching game stores or game stores.

GRANDPARENTING ADVENTURES

Write a picture postcard weekly or every other week to each grandchild with a joke or something interesting.

Write a newsy letter once a month to each grandchild.

Telephone each grandchild on some regular schedule.

Become a foster grandparent to a local child.

Become a "pen-pal grandparent" to a child via e-mail over the Internet.

HEALTH ADVENTURES

Establish a consistent exercise program.

Every month decide on some healthier way to eat and make one small change.

HELPING ADVENTURES

Babysit someone’s pet for a weekend and not get irritated.

Comparison shop for some big-expense item for a low-income person or family and negotiate with the store for a lower price on their behalf.

Offer your home as a "safe house" to neighborhood parents in case their children feel in danger and need someplace to run to. The parents should check with the authorities to make sure you are not a child molester. Encourage them to do so.

HOSPITALITY ADVENTURES

Every month invite one new person or couple or group of people over for a meal, a dessert, a movie, a game of some kind, or just to visit.

Invite these ages over to your home at some time or other:

a preschooler:  __ boy   __ girl

a grade school student: __ boy   __ girl

a junior high school student:  __ boy   __ girl

a high school student:  __ boy   __ girl

an engaged couple

a couple who has been married under a year

a couple who has just given birth to a child

a couple who has celebrated their 25^th
wedding anniversary

someone who has just gotten a new job

Invite a low-income person or family to your home for a meal three times.

Bake something for one of your neighbors every month.

Make a list of things you have that others could borrow if they needed them. Give it to a few people you trust.

Ask someone or some people over to watch a television special or major sports event.

Make a list of seven people and assign one day of the week to each of them. Then on that day call them to see how they are and to visit.

Invite a wealthy person or family to your home for a meal.

Open your home up for a neighborhood drop-in party or holiday celebration.

INTERNET ADVENTURING

Visit five countries by reading for five hours for each country through internet searches of the Worldwide Web.

Research one strange animal until you are reading little or nothing new about that animal.

Research your favorite flower until you are reading little or nothing new about that flower.

Find an interesting news group and contribute five comments over the period of a month.

Join a newsgroup about some special interest of yours.

Create your own web site, complete with information about yourself and the provision of something interesting and worthwhile.

Become an e-mail pen-pal with someone in another country.

MISCELLANEOUS ADVENTURING

Learn a foreign language will enough to watch foreign television and understand in general what people are saying.

Learn to cook another country’s cuisine.

Do something you used to enjoy a lot but just do it in a lesser way, a way you can do.

Take your camera and take pictures either to enter a photo contest or to make gifts.

MONEY-MAKING ADVENTURING

Babysit latchkey children in your neighborhood for a reasonable fee.

Think how you would start and prosper a new business venture.

Shop for those unable to do it for themselves or who are too busy to do it.

Explore home work opportunities to do while you watch television or when you have time on your hands.

NEIGHBORHOOD ADVENTURES

Walk around your neighborhood and notice attractive things and well-kept yards. Look for things for which to compliment people. Send a compliment by mail to the address.

Become a check-point for latch-key children in your immediate neighborhood. Make yourself available for these children of one or more homes to call you as soon as they get home from school and to call you in case of an emergency when they cannot be helped by their parents. Make sure you have the parent’s phone number to call when you do not hear from a child and that child does not answer the phone.

Find a lonely person in your neighborhood and visit on a regular basis (daily, weekly, every other week, etc.)

READING ADVENTURES

Read five books about your city.

Read five books about your region or county.

Read five books about your state.

Read a book about safety.

Read five books, each about one of your favorite animals.

Read one book about travel adventures someplace you will go.

Read two books about your hobby.

Read one book about the future.

Read five historical fiction books that take place in five different countries.

Read a book about one of your heroes.

Read the Bible all the way through.

Read one health book.

Read a book you did not want to read in high school or college.

Read one favorite book of each of your children and grandchildren and/or nieces and nephews.

SIGHTSEEING AROUND TOWN ADVENTURES

Walk through a large floral nursery.

Go through a local tourist attraction that you have never taken time to see.

Eat at ten restaurants and rank them on quality of food, cleanliness, and service. Send your comments to your local newspaper.

THINKING ADVENTURES

Watch and critique advertising, looking for the deceitfulness wherever used.

Decide upon five television shows that teach values you do not agree with.

TRAVEL ADVENTURING

Go to one place in each of the four seasons of the year.

Visit your state capital building and observe congressional sessions.

Travel at least once out of the country.

Go on a cruise.

Travel to another state at least 200 miles away to do something other than visit relatives or friends.

Travel to see each of your nieces and nephews.

TRAVEL TELEVISION SHOWS

Travel to ten countries by way of watching television travel programs. (Keep a list.)

Travel to one country by watching five television programs about that country. (Keep a list.)

Travel to ten countries by watching movies that take place in that country at least fifteen minutes of the movie. It doesn’t matter if the movie faked it and did not actually film in the country, as often is the case. (Keep a list.)

Travel to all 50 states by watching television programs about those states. (Keep a list.)

Listen to news about all 50 states. (Keep a list of states you have heard about on the news.)

Travel to all 50 states by watching movies that take the movie’s character(s) into those states. It doesn’t really matter if the movie faked it and did not actually film in that state, as often is the case. (Keep a list.)

WALKING TOURS

For safety, you may want to take these walks with a companion. It’s just a good idea for many reasons.

Take a "no purpose" walk in the city.

Take a "no purpose" walk in a park or forest.

Take a "no purpose" walk along the sea shore.

Take a "no purpose" walk along a railroad track.

Take a "no purpose" walk along a river.

Take a "no purpose" walk in a mall.

Take a "no purpose" walk along a bike path.

Go on a historical walk.

Go on a walk with a day care center or school class.

Go on a walk along a nature trail.

Walk every street in a small city.

Take a walk with a neighbor’s dog.

Walk in ten different neighborhoods.

WRITING ADVENTURES

Write once a month to all of your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, sisters and brothers, even if you see them regularly and even if they do not write to you. You are doing this for the blessing it will give you. Compliment them and affirm their strengths.

Write your life story including lessons you have learned. This is best done on a computer, if you have one or can purchase an outdated model cheaply. Give or sell at cost a copy to each of your children and grandchildren. Let your close friends read it.

Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.

Write a letter to the editor of a national magazine.

Become a pen pal with another person, maybe even as a foster grandparent of sorts.

Join an Internet newsgroup of some subject you enjoy. Participate in the group by writing comments.

Join an Internet newsgroup of some subject you enjoy. Find someone in the group to write e-mail to regularly.

Dick Wulf, MSW, LCSW
Colorado Springs, Colorado