Life: The Scavengers

Bar Birthdays.

They're all the rage.

They go a little something like this: The birthday kid (meaning, anyone turning 21 - 32) sends out an evite to 200 of their closest friends, asking them to meet up at a bar in the hopes that at least 30 of those evitees (along with 2-3 guests each) show up at said bar, somewhere between the hours of midnight and 2am, on their way home from the three other bar birthdays they were also attending that night. If you're the last party on the list, everyone will show up wasted and tired. If you're the first party on the list, everyone will stay for only an hour.

I hate these things. I love my friends. But the bar-birthday thing has got to go.

I tried it one year. I made the tragic mistake of only inviting people I actually liked. As far as party statistics go, only a certain percentage of the people you invite to your bar-birthday will actually show up. I was unaware of that at the time. So, let's just say it was a small gathering.

The key to a bar-birthday's success is to invite people you don't like and hope that people who show up are people you do not know. I did not realize this.

I do think though, that the bar-birthday thing starts to come to a halt as people get older. In fact, it seems like the older some of my friends get, the more their birthdays seem like throwbacks to old-school style parties. Like the kinds our parents used to throw for us in our backyards. I swear, if I get invited to an all-girls sleepover party soon, equipped with Corey Haim movies and a weegie board, I won't be surprised.

This year a friend of mine (who was turning older than 30) decided to forgo the bar-birthday and plan something more creative. He actually constructed a scavenger hunt around the city for his friends. About 20 of us came, and it was tons of fun. It was a great challenge, and we all had such an adrenaline rush from it. It actually felt like we were on a mini-adventure together and really there to celebrate something. It was a great day.

The word "scavenger" stayed in my mind for a while afterwords. I kept thinking about how interesting it was to spend 2 hours intensely and actively looking for things. How refreshing it felt to be so clear about our goals and unabashedly determined to meet them.

It got me thinking about other things we look for in life, consciously or not. And how different the experience of finding what you're looking is when you're intentionally seeking it out, versus just falling upon it by chance.

In a scavenger hunt, such as the one we were on, it's all about being entirely conscious, pro-active, and somewhat ballsy. Our tasks involved interacting with strangers, making fools of ourselves in public, and in some cases, nearly chasing people down the street in order to get them involved in our game. Most people were pleasant and eager to participate. When we walked up to someone with a smile on our face and an excited attitude, we were almost always greeted with a smile in return and a new person happy to get involved and help us out.

But that feeling of extreme motivation for the purpose of winning, achieving, and accumulating... was really powerful. And as each goal was crossed off our list, we felt a sense of victory.

Often in life, we look for excuses not to seek things out for ourselves. We tell ourselves not to speak up too loudly. We advise people not to seem so obvious about what they are after. We seem to take pride in being able to say, "It just fell into my lap!" or, "I wasn't even looking to meet someone!"

But we are scavengers more often than we realize.

We are scavengers for our jobs, our educations, and our homes. We seek out networking opportunities and educational advancements. We go apartment hunting, and then scavenge for new towels to match the wallpaper.

And of course, we are scavengers of love, looking for that special someone who is worth opening our heart to.

What I find so interesting, as I reflect, is how often I've been told, "It will come to you when you stop looking."

But you know what? I say to hell with the shame of actively looking. If you know what you're after, and you know what you want (in love, at work, in school), then don't be afraid to put your whole self into the process of seeking it out.

Keep your eyes open. Hunt. And when you find what you're looking for, go for it.

You may not get the response you were hoping for.

But with a smile like that, there is a really good chance you will.