You know, most people understand the main quest, right? Build a career, make money, find a partner, buy a home, raise a family, and stay healthy long enough to enjoy some of it. These goals give life structure, sure, but they don't necessarily make it interesting. Because the experiences that change you the most are often the ones you never needed to have.

​If the main quest builds your life, here are 15 side quests worth taking in life that will build the person living it.

​Number 15: Learn how to fight

Competence changes your posture and your presence. Others feel it. Not because they see you as a threat, but because they see someone who's in control of themselves and the situation. Learning how to fight has surprisingly little to do with violence. It teaches you to be calm while someone is actively applying pressure. Nobody's going to look at you as an easy victim.

​Number 14: Drive across a country or a continent

Long-distance travel is the loading screen of real life. Airplanes take you places, but driving or riding lets you experience everything in between. The destination gives you photographs; the road gives you the story.

​Number 13: Get a pet and develop a deep bond

A pet introduces a form of love built almost entirely through presence. You can't impress an animal with your resume, status, or intelligence. It cares whether you return, whether it feels safe around you, and whether your actions are consistent. In return, you receive affection without performance and companionship without conversation.

​Number 12: Travel, specifically to learn

Most travel is consumption with better scenery. But what if, instead of collecting photographs, you collected skills? Learn tango in Buenos Aires, train Muay Thai in Chiang Mai, or learn to sail through the Greek islands. Leave with fewer souvenirs and one ability that didn't belong to you when you arrived.

​Number 11: Build something with your hands over several months

Most modern jobs allow you to pretend you're competent and get away with it. You can't restore a car with words, though. Choose something physical that takes months and refuses to be rushed, no matter how good your pitch is. Keep one activity protected from optimization where being mediocre is allowed and enjoyment is enough.

​Number 10: Design your home

Most people spend years inside of spaces they never consciously chose. The space is already there, so they fill it with stuff until it becomes a storage unit for previous versions of themselves. Do not design it to impress people who visit twice a year. No, design it to support the people who live there every day. Build a home that makes you smile when you open your eyes.

​Number 9: Run a marathon

Now, running a marathon is less physical than it is mental. The hardest part is signing up. You reach a point where your brain jumps in and tells you you should quit, that your body is not meant to do this, that there are snacks and comfy couches back at your beautifully designed home. And that's where you discover there's a switch inside of you. It's you versus that whiny little bitch voice inside of your head, and the decision to not let it control you anymore.

​Number 8: See your body in its best shape

Get into the best shape of your life once, just to see how differently the world treats the same person. You fall in love with who you see in the mirror and this version of life that you get to live. The marathon shows you how far your mind can push your body, but this one shows you how much better life is for strong and healthy people.

​Number 7: Volunteer in a really poor country

Our understanding of pain, struggle, and blessing expands only as far as our exposure allows. You travel somewhere people are dying because they can't access food, clean water, or basic medicine. You see families carrying water for kilometers while you complain about the pressure in your shower. Gratitude stops being something inspirational people tell you to practice and becomes an involuntary response.

​Number 6: Live in another country for one year

One of the most liberating things you can discover is that people are living happy, meaningful lives in places you've barely considered. Living abroad expands your understanding of what normal life can look like. More importantly, you learn that your current location is not a life sentence.

​Number 5: Make art and display it publicly

Art is how something invisible inside of you enters the physical world. This is uncomfortable because most adults have spent years neglecting the creative part of themselves. Then display your work publicly. Allow people to see a part of you that competence, clothing, and conversation could never reveal.

​Number 4: Write a book

You don't need to be famous, scholarly, or unusually wise to write a book, but you do need to develop a perspective and articulate it. Writing forces you to decide what you actually mean. It doesn't need to be a bestseller to be a success; simply finishing it is a success. The world doesn't need another book, but you do.

​Number 3: Go on a religious or psychedelic journey

Most people inherit their understanding of reality before they're even old enough to question it. So at least once, step outside of that framework deliberately. Walk a pilgrimage, attend a silent retreat, study a faith seriously. A worthwhile spiritual journey doesn't answer every question; it just makes your old answers feel too small.

​Number 2: Have a best friend and do things together

After your partner and children, a best friend might be the most important relationship in your life. Around them, you can step outside of the roles of parent, partner, boss, or provider and briefly become the version of yourself that existed before life became so serious. What a blessing it is to have someone you can call your best friend.

​Number 1: Make a video now for your children or for yourself to watch in 20 years

This might be the highest return side quest on the list. It costs nothing, takes less than an hour, and it may very well become priceless. Record your home, your voice, your mannerisms, and an ordinary day. Photos preserve your face; video preserves what it felt like to be you.

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​Any one of these side quests will make your life more interesting. Which of these side quests do you plan to do this year?