Are you choosing your own adventure?

Did you ever read those ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books when you were a kid?

They’d begin just like any other book, but you were the protagonist and once you got a page or so into the story, you would be offered the choice over what to do next.

So for example, the story might open with you witnessing a bank robbery. Then you’d be asked something like:

Do you…

A: Call the police to report the robbery?

B: Chase after the bank robber?

If you chose Option A, turn to page 3.

If you chose Option B, turn to page 4.

As a Gen X kid, growing up long before the arrival of video games, Choose Your Own Adventure books seemed like the cutting edge of interactive technology and I remember feeling awestruck at the fact that a story in a published book could change, depending on the choices I made as a reader.

Usually, there would be a right choice that took you further into the story, and a wrong choice that resulted in the story ending prematurely.

So, in the example above, if you chose to call the police you might turn to page 3 to be told something like: The police take your statement and tell you that you won’t be needed any more. The End.

But if you chose to chase after the bank robber this would keep the action of the story going and as long as you kept choosing correctly, you would end up having a book-length adventure.

Sometimes I think real life is exactly like a Choose Your Own Adventure story.

Every day we make choices that lead to something happening. But in a lot of cases the safer the choice, the duller the adventure.

The other day, I bumped into an acquaintance I hadn’t seen for a few years. Three years to be precise.

The last time I saw her, I’d just made the really difficult choice to end my relationship.

If my life had been a Choose Your Own Adventure book back then, choosing to end my relationship would have taken me to a page that read something like this…

Over the next few weeks you start feeling really down. Your boyfriend was the only person you knew in the town you moved to during the pandemic, so you feel increasingly isolated. You start doubting yourself and your choices. Your ex boyfriend was a nice guy. So what if you didn’t have a lot in common? So what if there wasn’t any passion or spark left? At least you had someone. At least you weren’t all alone. Maybe you should play it safe and get back together with him?

Do you:

A: Get back together with your boyfriend despite your misgivings?

B: Decide to tough it out alone because you know deep down it’s the right thing to do?

I kept choosing to tough it out, and then (three years ago) I met my acquaintance and it turned out that she was in the exact same boat, having just ended a relationship that wasn’t working for her either.

The second she shared her similar experiences with me I felt comforted and less alone.

We started meeting regularly and encouraging each other in our decisions to be brave and choose to end things that really weren't working.

But then we met for lunch (the last time I saw her before this week) and she told me that she’d decided to get back together with her partner.

The disappointment I felt in that moment was crushing.

Disappointment for her, as she’d told me so much about their relationship issues by that point I felt certain she was doing the wrong thing and that the reconciliation would be doomed to fail. But also, more selfishly, I felt disappointment for me. My acquaintance was the type of person who tends to disappear off the face of the earth when she’s in a relationship, so I knew I probably wouldn’t see her again, and toughing it out without her support was going to make it so much harder.

I remember getting home from that lunch and bursting into tears as soon as I walked through the door. And all of my own doubts and fears came back with a vengeance. Maybe I should call my ex, ask if he’d be open to giving it another go…

As predicted, my friend disappeared into her relationship and I sank into a deeper gloom but I kept choosing the harder option instead of playing it safe, and within a few months I made a choice that led to my first post pandemic travel adventure.

A choice that changed everything for the better because it reminded me how much I love to travel to new places and meet new people.

So I chose to go on a solo trip for a month. Then another and another. And then I chose to give up my home to travel as I write and I’ve been choosing my own adventure as a digital nomad ever since.

choosing my own adventure at Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris

Which brings me to this week.

I’m now preparing to resume my global nomading, as my dad’s health has stabilised, and I was picking up my thyroid meds before I return to Ukraine when I bumped into my old acquaintance, who I hadn’t heard a peep from these past three years.

We decided to go for a coffee and she told me that she and her partner ended up splitting for good about a year after she’d got back together with him.

I told her how sorry I was to hear that and she proceeded to moan about all the things that were wrong with him. Again. They might have broken up for good over a year ago but she was clearly still mired in the recrimination and regret.

‘How about you?’ she finally asked. ‘Are you still living in Eastbourne?’

‘No!’ I exclaimed. ‘I left there in 2023. I got rid of my apartment and all my things and started writing my way around the world.’ I then explained that I’d been back in the UK since the end of last year to help take care of my dad,but now that his health has stabilised I’m about to go back to Ukraine to write a book set there.

‘My son went to work in Ukraine for an aid organisation helping victims of the war,’ I added excitedly. ‘And now he’s married to a lovely Ukrainian woman.’

To my surprise, this barely raised an eyebrow and zero questions.

‘So, now I’m single again,’ my acquaintance said wearily. ‘How about you?’ she looked at me hopefully and I felt my heart sink.

Why is it that for so many women, the only Choose Your Own Adventure worth talking or hearing about is the one where you choose a relationship?

It truly baffled me that she didn’t want to know anything about my adventures travelling the world writing books, or about my son’s own adventures, helping the victims of war.

So I replied that a fun musician I met recently had asked me on a date by texting me a selection of options to choose from - a Choose Your Own Adventure date! - and how I’d chosen the ‘go to a talk about psychedelics followed by dinner’ option.

But once again I only received a tight little smile in response before she resumed talking about herself.

Not that I cared. As I sat there listening to her drone on about how awful her ex was, all I could think about was how much had changed since I’d last seen her.

And how drastically my life had changed for the better because I’d had the guts to not play it safe and to continue making the tough, lonely choice in the hope that it would one day lead to a magnificent adventure. Which it did.

I bounced out of the cafe feeling full to the brim with gratitude and vowing to absorb the lesson of our chance encounter.

The lesson that, although playing it safe might bring some temporary comfort, if we know deep down that the harder choice is in fact the right one, we need to grit our teeth and stick to it, in the faith that it will lead us to our next great adventure.

If you’re in a similar situation to the one I was in three years ago I hope that reading this brings you hope, and the courage to keep choosing bravely. Choosing to make your life a magnificent adventure.

Until next week…

Siobhan

My new novel, The Lost Story of Sofia Castello, is available to pre-order for just £1.99 / $3.99 now! Find out more and snap up your copy here.