( CNN ) -- `` Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you did n't do than by the ones you did do . So throw off the bowlines . Sail away from the safe harbor . Catch the trade winds in your sails . Explore . Dream . Discover . '' -- Mark Twain . Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner , whose expeditions have inspired others to seek adventure . Adventure comes to those who seek it . Some are born with an adventurous streak , an insatiable curiosity that can only be quelled through discovery , while others seek out adventures as a means of conquering the demons within : fear , boredom , stagnation , a sort of dry rot of the soul . We see adventurous people as being somehow different from ourselves : stronger , braver , tougher , fitter . They are versions of our best selves : the doers in life , the fearless , those who go over the mountain and come back to tell us what 's on the other side . While we may think the true adventurers are a species apart , we are all adventurers at heart -- yet sometimes the urge is stifled by modern life . The lust for adventure is planted in childhood . How many of us sat enthralled under the blankets as our parents read us the adventures of the Famous Five , `` Treasure Island , '' `` Where the Wild Things Are , '' `` The Swiss Family Robinson , '' `` Tarzan '' and `` Peter Pan '' ? Children weaned on such stories may be forgiven for assuming adulthood is one long adventure that swings wildly between jungles , swamps , deserted islands and alpine heights . Yet modern life is increasingly sedentary and safety-conscious . The desire for comfort and convenience ameliorates our contradictory urge to explore . A few have it thrust upon them : stranded in an inhospitable place , lost in a jungle or called up for combat -- and they find themselves dropped in an adventure that they may not have chosen ; but for the main part , adventure comes to those who seek it . Dr. James Thompson , a senior lecturer in psychology at University College London , says seeking adventure is more common `` amongst people who are extroverted , who are outgoing , who are sociable , because one of the things they need -- apart from the excitement of people -- is excitement generally . '' But if you think adventure is something that only happens to other people ; that you are too unfit to climb a mountain , too scared to sail across the open sea , too nervous to travel through a country where you ca n't speak the language ; perhaps you should rethink . After all , having an adventure could be good for you . Psychologists have linked adventure-seeking with a range of positive qualities . Adventure can : . Following the stories of this age 's greatest adventurers such as polar explorer Douglas Mawson , Everest climber Edmund Hillary and mountaineer Reinhold Messner , we are encouraged not just to follow their paths up mountains or along rock faces -- they also inspire us to take more risks , to seize more from each day . Who could fail to be inspired after watching CNN interview the world 's greatest living mountaineer , Reinhold Messner ? In 1980 , Messner was the first person to ascend Mount Everest alone without supplementary oxygen . Later , he crossed Antarctica on skis . He tells CNN anchor Becky Anderson : `` I 'm a normal person , a totally normal person , and I was really lucky in my life to have to have the opportunity to follow my dreams . So in the beginning I was a rock climber , and all my enthusiasm , my energy and my willpower went into rock climbing . '' Many young people are naturally adventurous -- throwing their energy and enthusiasm behind sport , hobbies and travel . Witness the explosion of school leavers taking gap years ( a year off in between school and university or the workforce ) , with the destinations becoming more and more exotic and activities accompanying the travel designed to expand their mind as well as their horizons . But later in life , we can wake up and find our lives leeched of adventure . We may be loaded down with a mortgage , kids or a demanding job . Adventure then becomes something we prefer to read about rather than live . We fall into the trap of the armchair traveler and become transfixed by all the journeys we did n't make . Instead of setting out on our own expeditions , we read Joe Simpson 's account of his near-death mountaineering experiences in `` Touching the Void . '' Or we follow Sebastian Junger 's account of wild sea adventures in `` The Perfect Storm . '' But while we are great armchair adventurers , a craving for the real thing can stir in us when we feel the need to change and shake things up . Women in their 40s are leading the charge towards adventure . A survey released by the Adventure Travel Trade Association in March 2007 said today 's typical adventure traveler was `` female and fortyish . '' `` Women make up the majority of adventure travelers ( 52 percent ) worldwide , with the most common destination being South America , '' said the trade association . The survey of travelers from 35 countries also found that people aged 41 to 60 are the highest participating age group in adventure travel . A survey by YouGov in the UK has identified a new subset of British -- the Nifty Fifties . They 've had the responsible jobs and raised their children -- and now they want adventure . Tesco Life Insurance has noticed : `` They 've decided to take the five star version of the student gap year , encompassing all of the adventure with none of the discomforts . Neither burgeoning waistlines nor graying hair is going to hold them back . '' Some older people are inspired to seek adventure by their children 's gap year experiences . Others just want to spend their kids ' inheritances . In a survey of older people carried out by Tesco Life Insurance they compiled the Nifty Fifty wish list . Adventure is a common component to their aspirations , the most popular of which are noted below : . Tony Wheeler , one of the founders of guidebook giant `` Lonely Planet , '' is now an aging baby-boomer , yet he still pops up in Iran , a place that has recently dominated headlines the world over for all the wrong reasons . In a recent piece in UK newspaper The Observer , he also recommends holidays in North Korea , Iraq and Afghanistan . Messner now is 63 years old and although he no longer has the strength of his youth , he is still setting himself challenges . `` So my challenge today is this one ( setting up a museum ) , I will finish this one and afterwards I will invent a new challenge and it will be not on Everest and not in Antarctica it will be probably in a mental dimension because mentally we can go very far also in later years , '' he told CNN . But the yearning for adventure can strike at all ages . Dave Wroe , 33 , and Penny Bradfield , 28 , both gave up exciting jobs in the Australian media to travel . They are spending April and May in Iran and have already braved trekking in the Amazon , train travel across India , diving in Syria and traveling in Columbia . `` I see adventure as going beyond something you feel comfortable with . If you are uncomfortable going to the end of your street and you go beyond this , then you are being adventurous , '' said Wroe . Wroe has a point . You do n't have to emulate the deeds of Messner to be an adventurer . The spirit of adventure can infiltrate all areas of your life . You can infuse life 's `` ordinariness '' with an adventure : cooking a meal that you may not have tried before , walking to work on a different route , striking up conversation with someone at the office whom you perceive to be intimidating . Successfully pushing your natural boundaries can lead to increased confidence . `` The general things which determine whether you start being adventurous is your personality and your youth . But once you start noticing that you have been able to overcome a challenge , it becomes a reward in its own right , '' said Dr. Thompson . For Messner , adventure now takes place on the ground , with establishing a climbing museum and being elected a member of the European Parliament . Speaking to CNN with the mighty mountains behind him , there was a restless but playful look in his eyes . He said he was n't the type to sit around , drink beer and collect his pension in his old age . Adventure is so much a part of his life , it seems , that it is an urge that can only be extinguished by death . And so while the strength in his body diminishes , the adventures will take place in his mind . Messner is an extraordinary man , and while most of us would struggle to climb Everest with or without oxygen , we can still emulate his spirit of adventure in our daily lives .
Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner has inspired others to seek adventure . Psychologist Dr. James Thompson says adventurers tend to be more extroverted . Women in their 40s are leading the charge towards adventure . Insurers say `` Nifty Fifties '' are seeking adventures once the kids have left home .