Book: The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life

I enjoyed The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life (Amazon), partially as a travel junkie (is it weird that his deportation from Eritrea makes me want to go?) and also as someone who is usually striving after some sort of goal.

The book is about people who persevere for a long time in pursuit of a goal, maybe a slightly crazy one. The author visited every country in the world. A guy walked across America. A woman cooked a meal from every country in the world. A girl of 16 sailed around the world alone. It’s not just inspirational stories, the stories are woven into a narrative that asks what is quest? Why do we do it? How? And what happens after?

I made me ask myself if I have a quest? And having concluded no, ask should I have one? There are places I want to go (notably this list, and maybe this one – alternate version – although so far I’ve only been to one from each). It would be cool to visit every country in the world, but for the last few years I have contented myself with going somewhere new each year. This year, Sweden and Romania (maybe I can fit in one more!). 2013, Thailand, New Zealand (x3!), North Korea, India, Indonesia (Bali), Iceland, Portugal, Prague. 2012: Australia, Singapore, Denmark. 2011: Prince Edward Island, California.

Anyway, so far I haven’t found a quest of my own. But I did enjoy the book, and if you, like me, love an adventure, you might like it too.