"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." -- JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings This is one of my favorite quotes. I adore it as a metaphor for life, whether Bilbo meant it as such. It embodies the mixed emotions of excitement, fear, and hopeful anticipation related to the start of new adventures. The best part about new adventures is that one can begin at any time. Every morning can be like this ! Even though there are certain milestones in life that I planned for, like graduating from school, starting a new job, or moving to a new city across the country, often it's the unexpected twists and turns in life that (usually in retrospect) give so much character to my existence. Often, also, such new adventures begin with my making the willful decision to move toward a particular direction with a mindset like Dory's perceptive s