The Happiness Of Pursuit, My Search For A Quest, And A Book Giveaway!

Last Updated on October 8, 2024

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There’s a quest waiting for you to find, claim or create.

After reading Chris Guillebau’s latest book, The Happiness Of Pursuit, this sentence stuck with me. I wasn’t even twenty pages into the book when I decided that it’s time to find – and pursue – a quest of my own.

The author himself undertook to huge quest of visiting every country in the world before turning 35. And even though he was successful, he had to overcome countless hurdles, setbacks and other issues, but he never gave up. In the book he doesn’t only talk about his very own quest, but he looks at all kinds of other quests, pursued by people who he got to know while in the process of reaching his own goal. The things people were challenging themselves with were not always travel-related, but included self-discovery quests, academic quests, athletic quests and creative quests (to name just a few).

He shows examples of people who successfully pursued their quests or are still in the process of doing so, on track to reach their goal soon. He explains why the people he interviewed for the book decided to pursue their respective quests, how they overcame roadblocks and blocked out naysayers, and what exactly defines as a quest.

What exactly defines as a quest?

Many people set goals, like getting in better shape for example, or run a marathon, travel to fifty countries or improve their photography, but a quest is actually much bigger than that.

Chris Guillebeau defines a quest as an undertaking with a specific goal and end point, a challenging pursuit, something that requires a sacrifice of some sort and is driven by an internal motivation that can border on obsession. To reach the end goal, incremental progress is made, step by step. Quests that he talks about in the book that I thought were remarkable included Laura Dekker, who set off to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the world alone in a sailboat at the age of 16, Martin Powell who ran 250 marathons in one year and Thomas Hawk, who challenged himself to take, edit and publish one million photos. As you can see, no quest is like the other.

I am longing for a challenge

Maybe the book resonated so much with me because I am at a point where I am simply ready to take on a challenge. The author asks the reader in the book: What’s the next chapter of your story? And after the big changes and hurdles I’ve dealt with this year, I have actually asked myself this question several times in the past few weeks.

I’ve already made the decision to undertake a quest of my own, but I am not ready yet to announce what I am going for. I have to admit that it’s not likely to be a travel-related quest, just because I don’t feel anything in travel would really challenge me. While for many people walking the Camino is a quest, I never doubted my physical ability to finish it, even though it will be challenging. A quest to visit all the UNESCO World Heritage sites around the globe is just not special anymore. Cycling overland from Europe to China or walk across Africa? Visiting all 50 US states or National Parks? It’s all been done. And, even though I have seemingly a million places I’d like to see on my travel wish list, I don’t have the desire to visit every country in the world, that’s just not my quest.

To challenge myself, I know it has to be a physical goal, something that pushes my body to the limit. That is all I am going to say about my own quest for now 🙂

Are you ready to pursue a quest?

If you are like me, looking for something to challenge yourself with and to work towards to, want to get some more inspiration to find your own quest, and how to successfully pursue it, this book is definitely for you. I found myself taking notes the entire time I read The Happiness Of Pursuit, and I don’t remember the last time I actually marked paragraphs and sentences while reading a book!

To find out if you are ready to undertake a quest, you could ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you long for a challenge?
• Do you enjoy setting goals?
• Does making progress toward a goal motivate you?
• Do you have a hobby or passion or something you might be almost obsessed with?
• Are you ready to follow your passion?
• Do you have ideas you can’t stop thinking about?
• Is there more to life than this?
• Are you ready to break out of the traditional life path?

If you can answer most of these questions with YES, you are probably ready to pursue your very own quest.

Finding your quest is not always easy.. but pursuing it is even harder.

You can order the book from Amazon or find it in your local book store – or enter the giveaway!

Win a copy of the book!

I am giving away one copy of The Happiness Of Pursuit to one lucky reader – so if this sounds interesting to you, leave a comment for a chance to win a copy! I’d like to know if you’ve ever pursued a quest, and if so, were you successful? What kind of quest was it? If you are planning to pursue a quest: what kind of quest would be for you? A physical challenge, a travel quest, self-improvement or educational? I am looking forward to your comments!

To find out more about the author, visit ChrisGuillebeau.com. To find out more about the book, visit FindTheQuest.com.

Disclaimer: This review of The Happiness of Pursuit including the book giveaway is sponsored by Random House. The winner of the giveaway will be chosen via Random.org. The giveaway will close on 22 September.

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