She rolls her eyes and tells me this story.

“When Michael Jackson died my mom went into mourning. My mom applied for temporary disability at her job so she could mourn Michael Jackson’s death, and has spent the last four weeks laying on the couch under a blanket.

“She went to Wal-Mart, she went to Target, she went to K-Mart, she went to the music stores and she bought every Michael Jackson thingie she could lay her hands on, every CD, every magazine, every book. She said, ‘Some day this stuff is all going to be a collectors item.’

“On Sunday dad said to me ‘hey you wanna go out for breakfast’ and I said ‘no, cuz I don’t want to spend the whole breakfast listening to mom blather about Michael Jackson and if I have to listen to any more conversations about Michael Jackson I think I’m going to say something I’ll regret. Sorry dad…. don’t want to do breakfast.’

“Mom is constantly saying, ‘I feel so sorry for Michael, he had such a hard time.’ I say, “What about YOU? Haven’t YOU had a hard time? What about ME? Haven’t I had a hard time? What about the bum out on the street corner asking you for a quarter. Hasn’t HE had a hard time?”

My friend looks me in the eye and shakes her head in disbelief. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU, PEOPLE? You think that because Michael Jackson died, we’re supposed to send you a CHECK?

There’s this woman from Seattle, Erica Warmbrunn. She graduated from college and had a ‘nice’ job as a legal secretary or whatever, and after a couple years of that she’s like “OK so is this all there is to life? Getting my Starbucks fix in the morning and giving polite meaningless greetings to people while I answer the phone all day?”

She goes to the bike store and says to the guy “If you were going to ride a bike through Mongolia which one would you buy?”

He says, “That one” and she says, “I’ll take it.”

She has it shipped by air to southern Siberia and she literally rides her bike through Mongolia.

A single woman, all by herself.

(I like women with balls, how ’bout you?)

And not only does she ride through Mongolia, sleeping in a gur as guest of whatever family will take her in, she continues on her bicycle all the way through China to Viet Nam. She tells this fascinating tale in her book “Where the Pavement Ends.”

When I first met John Carlton we would have conversations about how for years he would write copy for six months of the year, then play in a rock band with his rowdy friends the other six months of the year.

He would encourage me: “Dude, climb out of your tiny comfortable box and get out there and mix it up. It keeps you spicy and fresh and it enlivens your writing and it keeps you from sleepwalking through life.”

Didn’t take much to convince me. One time I took my 8 year old daughter Tannah to China. We’re in Beijing and the Lonely Planet guide says there’s this really kooky restaurant called A Fun Ti that you’ve just got to check out.

This restaurant is half Chinese, half-Middle Eastern, culture and cuisine from the far northwest Xinjiang province, near Kazakhstan.

Most folks might assume China's a pretty homogenous place, but nothing could be further from the truth. They've got a Middle-Eastern part too.

So Tannah and I show up on a Friday night - the place is packed.

They've got a whole middle-eastern show going, guys and gals in costumes and fez hats and an emcee introducing musicians and leading dances.

(Ever heard "Happy Birthday" in Farsi?)

A bunch of guys come up on the stage and they have a beer-drinking contest. The winner is whoever evacuates his mug first through a straw.

A winner is declared. They blindfold him and sit him down on a chair.

Out comes a belly dancer with a live snake. This man has absolutely no idea what's going on, all he knows is that strange music is playing.

He sits there innocently while the audience roils with laughter, and the belly dancer twirls and contorts in front of him.

Then the snake slithers off of her neck - on to his neck. They take his blindfold off, and oh my, what a lovely surprise! YAY!

Then they clear the stage, dim the lights and the music system starts playing Who Let The Dogs Out.

Suddenly, as though summoned by some invisible signal, everyone stands up, climbs up on top of their table and starts dancing.

After we left, we were walking down the street and Tannah says to me "You know Dad, Mom would NOT like that place at all.

“Mom would NEVER let us dance on top of the table!"

"Tannah, that's right, I don't think Mom would like that place either."

EVERYONE has a thirst for adventure.

EVERYONE has wanderlust.

You will do one of two things with your wanderlust and thirst for adventure:

1) You will live vicariously through the life of someone else and when he takes too many meds and gives himself a heart attack, your screen will go blank and suddenly everyone will know you’ve been living your entire life in a sleepwalking haze.

2) You will live YOUR adventure and whether it goes north or south, east or west, succeeds gloriously or fails miserably, you will at least die knowing you lived YOUR adventure, not somebody else’s. You will not regret living some safe, mediocre substitute excuse for a life. You will have been wide awake.

Wide awake in America or England or New Zealand or Brazil or wherever you live.

And here’s the ironic part:

If YOU are wide awake and YOU live a real life, others will live their pretend life through you. (It won’t be your fault. And frankly I think it’s better if they live their life vicariously through you than, say… Michael Jackson.)

An old copywriting maxim says, “Most people don’t meet interesting people, visit interesting places, or do interesting things. As a copywriter you must create these experiences for them.”

Amen, brother.

So… how you gonna express adventure to other people if you don’t live it yourself?

How you going to lead people into the world of promise and excitement if all you’re doing is politely answering the phone and getting your Starbucks fix every morning?

Please understand what I am not saying:

I am not saying, throw caution to the wind and abandon your wife and kids. Nor do you have to literally ride your bike through Mongolia in order to have an adventurous life. (Though have to admit I’ve not stopped thinking about that book since the day I read it…. :^)

I’m not even saying you have to buy plane tickets to somewhere to have an “real” life.

I’m saying:

GET RID OF THIS IDEA THAT EVERYTHING YOU DO IS SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE.

How’s this for dangerous….

Pick some topic that you’re passionate about, something you believe in, something you have a VERY strong opinion about (like politics or religion or abortion or elementary school kids sucking down Ritalin or whatever)… go to an online discussion board, sign up with some anonymous screen name, and take the OTHER side of the debate.

The OPPOSITE side you usually take. The side that you HATE. The side that makes your skin crawl.

Climb inside the other person’s skin and be them. Just for one hour.

Passionately argue the other side.

(Is that too scary for you?)

I promise you, you WILL see things you had never seen before. The scales may even fall from your eyes.

You can go to confession afterwards, if you must.

But I promise you, you will live an adventure – for just one hour – that 99% of people never live.

Dude, your world is too small. Even if you’ve been to 20 different countries and have friends all over the world, your world is still too small.

On your coffee break today, while you get your Starbucks fix, crawl outside of your cubicle and live an adventure. Even if it’s just a micro-adventure.

And if you’ve got wanderlust of whatever variety, stop stuffing it down.

And whatever you do, do not live your life vicariously through some actor or artist or tragic pop star. You are the star of your own movie, and the only one who gives out academy awards for your movie is YOU.

Carpe Diem. Seize the day.

Perry Marshall