Why Adventure Matters in Long Working Lives

According to the author in her ongoing exploration about the patterns and changes in how people approach their working lives, she has found herself looking back at her own memories from over five decades of work. What stands out is not simply the steady progression of roles and achievements but the disproportionate impact of recurring moments of adventure that took her far beyond her usual experience.

At the time, these adventures each felt uncertain and sometimes even disruptive. More than that, they sat outside any clear narrative of progression. They did not register as forward movement. If anything, they felt almost indulgent.  Looking back, though,  now she sees these not as diversions from her working life. Instead, they were among the experiences that most shaped it.

According her, her reflections are not unique. In conversations with others about their own long working lives, a consistent pattern emerges. People describe moments of adventure that took them beyond what was familiar. Some stepped away entirely by, for instance, spending time in a different country. Others made smaller but still disorienting shifts, such as moving into unfamiliar roles or entering settings where they were no longer the expert.

Taking these kinds of leaps becomes more important as longevity reshapes our lives. Longer lives bring both opportunity and risk. They offer more time — to learn, to contribute, to explore. But they also demand more than a single way of working, thinking, or being. In short working lives, ossification matters less. But as working lives stretch, the ability to change becomes critical. Without periods of deliberate adventure and exploration, we risk becoming locked into versions of ourselves that no longer fit the future we are moving into.

The challenge is not just endurance; it is reinvention. And reinvention does not happen accidentally.

When the author talks to leaders about how they support their own longer working lives, they often emphasize the need for resilience, agility, and transformation. They rarely talk about adventure. It can sound frivolous: personal rather than organizational, or even risky in a corporate context.  Yet when people describe their own working lives, it is often the adventures that they describe. It becomes clear how profoundly such experiences support a long working life. Here are three reasons why.  Adventure disrupts accumulated patterns.  Adventure expands who we can become.  And adventure creates markers across the life course.

The Organizational Paradox.  What is striking is how unevenly these adventures are distributed. We recognize — and often encourage — adventure early in life, as part of education or early career exploration. But as our careers progress, adventure becomes harder to justify, harder to accommodate, and easier to defer. We encourage adventure at 20. We discourage it at 40 and 50.  The result is a paradox. The very experiences that most expand perspective and capability are the ones most likely to disappear, just as longer working lives make them more necessary.

Emerging in its place is a multistage life — one with more transitions, more variety, and more choice. In this model, exploration and adventure are no longer confined to the edges of life. They can now occur at multiple points: between roles, across careers, or within them.

We can see this shift occurring. Sabbaticals, secondments (temporarily working a different job at the same company), portfolio careers (combining multiple jobs, income streams, and side gigs), and midlife transitions are all becoming more visible. What matters is not the specific form of this shift but the principle: that long careers require moments of discontinuity, not just continuity.

Make Space for Adventure.  It is important to acknowledge that not all working lives offer the same scope for these experiences. Making time for new experiences is not simply a matter of individual choice. It reflects how working lives have traditionally been organized.  So for organizations, the challenge is to legitimize exploration across the life course — to create space for movement without penalizing those who step away.

For individuals, the challenge is different but equally real. As careers progress, time becomes more constrained, responsibilities accumulate, and stepping away feels harder to justify. Adventure is postponed — until there is more time, more certainty, or fewer obligations. But in a working life, that moment rarely arrives.  

Making space for adventure requires a shift in how we think about our lives and careers. We have become accustomed to valuing mastery and productivity, and adventure is often treated as optional — something peripheral rather than essential.

In longer lives, that assumption no longer holds. Adventure is not simply a break from work. It is one of the threads that keeps a life — and a career — alive. It is what allows a career to remain open, adaptive, and capable of renewal over decades. The risk is not that people take too many detours but too few.

What would your 80-year-old self ask of you? Yes — walk many steps a day, eat sensibly, sleep well. But also: Give me adventures. Give me moments I can remember, stories I can tell, conversations I can have with my grandchildren. Carve out time for extended travel or cultural immersion. Volunteer in unfamiliar contexts, in roles below your capabilities — or much higher. Ask to try a new task at work. Plan a weekend trip to someplace you’ve never been. Undertake a physically or creatively demanding challenge. Try out a self you’ve always dreamed of being. Some of these adventures are dramatic. Others are deeply personal.  In long working lives, the question is not only how long we can continue but also how often we are willing to step beyond what we know.

show less