22. A Scavenger Hunt
August 15, 2025
When I was young, we used to have scavenger hunts. It was a special event as part of a 9-year-old or 10-year-old birthday party. The parents would write up a list and we’d need to find things like –a leaf that is curved on one side and pointy on another, a potholder that has red in it, a knickknack with a train on it, a 1975 penny. We’d go out in at least two groups- competing to see who can find the items first. We’d scour yards for the pinecones or flower petals we needed. We’d knock on doors (of strangers!) to see if they could contribute a needed item. The main idea is – we searched for something. We went around with our eyes peeled, looking, seeking, and talking with others to describe what we needed, so they could help us. There were things out there that someone else had, that we requested, and they were shared with us, things that that they purportedly no longer needed (though sometimes were asked to return items after the hunt).
Nowadays, I don’t know if this is still a common game for 9-year-old birthday parties. If it is, I imagine it’s been sanitized a bit – maybe an escape room-type experience in a controlled environment. Writing about this, I realized that we’ve lost that idea of there being something out there that we don’t have within our reach already that may be useful to us. We live now as though we believe that everything we need is within our grasp, our sphere of influence, and anything we don’t have, we can buy from a store. We’ve stopped looking for things, we’ve stopped asking others for help, and we’ve stopped wondering what we will find, where we will find it. There was a mystery to the search, and a lot of good stories came from it. We’ve also lost that sense of not-knowing, the adventure, the idea that there is something out there to be found. And we’ve lost those stories.
A scavenger, according to the dictionary, is a person or animal that collects things that have been discarded by someone else. But we could also consider that I could collect things that I have discarded. Parts of me that have been left behind from childhood, from early adult dreams, from ambitions or quests that have been set aside. They may have been set aside for very good reasons – there’s no guilt here or regret. It’s simply being aware that it’s a new day, and these goals, dreams, ideas, may be picked up again. They are still there – if not in actively in our minds, then just under the surface of our awareness. It may be true that they bubble up at times, and we let them sink back down, telling ourselves we are too old, we missed our chance, it’s too hard now, and so many reasons to let these parts of ourselves go.
But what if we didn’t? What if each person reading this goes on a scavenger hunt for their own personal story? But this is a more difficult scavenger hunt than the ones we had at birthday parties, because it’s up to each of us to define what we are looking for; we don’t get a pre-made list. We can look for our interests – our REAL interests, not what we pretend to be interested in because others are doing it.
A small way to start is this - when you are making a decision – big or small – or even just going about your day, and you have a feeling that something is off, something is not right – do not simply brush it off. Or if you have a noticeable amount of excitement. Pay attention to the feeling. Be curious about it. Maybe it is nerves or overwhelm from the idea of something new. But maybe it is your spirit giving you clues in the only way it knows how.
Remember that this coming back to ourselves is a long-term project – not something that you’ll do in an hour or even an afternoon. It’s your life’s work, paying attention, making small adjustments towards what you love, being fully you.
Happy hunting!
