How to Turn Anxiety Into Adventure

Recently, a friend celebrating a milestone birthday (one signaling that the second half of life was upon her) announced that her new goal was to stop feeling so anxious about everything, and instead to have fun—to make her life “an adventure.” She asked for my advice on how to do that. I told her about something that the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard identified back in the 19th century as “an adventure which every man has to affront if he would not go to perdition.” He regarded this as “the most important thing” in life..