Haven Pell

When does a challenge become an adventure? Seems like it relates, at least in part, to timing. Challenges feel forward looking, but so can adventures. The two begin to differ after the fact when challenges are no longer challenging, but adventures are still adventures. Some even have categories for fun. Type 1 fun is fun while it is happening. Type 2 fun is only fun after it is over.

The picture suggests a challenge. There I am in a place where I could die or so they tell me, but here I am so the chances are I didn’t die. To be fair, I did not go through the gate to find out.

I tend to think about three kinds of adventure: doing things, figuring things out and deciding what they mean.

Looking backward over much of a lifetime, the resumé model that separates education from jobs is less useful. I both learned and did things at school and at work. Now they are all adventures.

I learned a whole bunch of stuff at Le Rosey, St. Paul’s, Harvard and Fordham Law School. Much of it prepared me for an era that didn’t happen, but no matter. I seem to have lived through what did happen.

I spent considerable time abroad, mostly in Europe and Japan. Serving as a Navy officer was the exception to a series of careers focused on advice giving and problem-solving (lawyer, investment banker, foundation director and investment advisor).

Married, father of three, grandfather of four, long-time Washington resident, political spectator, to-do list addict, thinker of thoughts, asker of “what ifs” and “why nots” and sports participant — skiing, bicycling, golf, hockey and court tennis.

Fun fact: I led an effort to build one of 45 court tennis courts in the world and the first in the United States in nearly eight decades.

Eight years into writing a political blog called LibertyPell (mostly not cracked), it became clear that the Washington political swamp had bigger, nastier creatures with too much interest in self-preservation for my “let’s fix this” mindset. I became the sports writer who hated his sport.

Now it is time for a broader look at more interesting topics.

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Welcome to the next adventures.