The Honor Adventure
Take back the dreaded date on the calendar by planning something worth looking forward to.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 93%
As the first birthday after her husband Lincoln's death approached, Morin asked her mother-in-law how they'd spend the day — a conversation prompted by having done a poor job of honouring her own mother's dates after she died. They framed it as an explicit choice: stay home from work and stare at the walls feeling sorry for themselves, or go do something. Because Lincoln was incredibly adventurous, they decided to honour his life by going skydiving. It became an annual adventure — mules into the Grand Canyon, flying trapeze lessons, swimming with sharks — with friends and family joining some years. The date turned into one they look forward to rather than dread. Readers have applied the same structure to divorce anniversaries: here's how I'm going to take it back.
Origin
Morin had not honoured her mother's birthday or anniversary well after her death. When her 26-year-old husband Lincoln's first posthumous birthday approached, she and her mother-in-law deliberately chose differently and went skydiving — his grandmother would have gone too but her doctor wouldn't clear her after cataract surgery. It became an annual tradition.
Core principles
- 01Hard anniversaries arrive whether you plan for them or not — the only variable is whether you decide in advance.
- 02The choice is binary and explicit: stay home and stare at the walls feeling sorry for yourself, or go do something.
- 03The activity should honour who the person actually was, not perform generic mourning.
- 04Making it annual converts a dreaded date into one you look forward to.
- 05The same structure works for any difficult date — a divorce anniversary, any day you wish weren't on the calendar.
How to run it
- 1
Have the conversation before the date arrives
Ask the people who share the loss: how are we going to spend the day? Deciding in advance is the entire mechanism — an unplanned anniversary defaults to the worst version.
Watch out Morin's regret is that she didn't do this for her mother's dates, and they became days she just wished weren't on the calendar.
- 2
Name the binary choice out loud
State both options explicitly: we could stay home from work and stare at the walls and feel sorry for ourselves, or we could go do something. Making it a stated choice removes the illusion that dread is inevitable.
- 3
Match the activity to who they were
Lincoln was an incredibly adventurous person, so they went skydiving. Pick something that expresses the actual trait you want to honour rather than a generic gesture.
Pro tip The specificity is what makes it honouring rather than distracting.
- 4
Make it annual and open it up
Commit to doing something every year — mules into the Grand Canyon, flying trapeze lessons, swimming with sharks. Let friends and family join. Always look for something that says: let's honour his life and make it the best that we can.
- 5
Ask the forward-looking question
Frame it as: even though he's not here, how do we want to remember him moving forward? The question points the ritual at the future rather than replaying the loss.
Pro tip The same question adapts to non-death losses: how do I want to honour something that no longer serves me, given I'm changed?
In the wild
Approaching what would have been her late husband's first birthday after his death, Morin and her mother-in-law faced the choice of staying home or doing something. Because Lincoln was incredibly adventurous, they went skydiving. His grandmother was going to come but had just had cataract surgery and her doctor wouldn't clear her.
→ It became an annual adventure — mules into the Grand Canyon, flying trapeze lessons, swimming with sharks — that friends and family join. It's now a day they look forward to rather than dread.
A reader of Morin's book found the anniversary of her divorce was always a really tough day on the calendar. Applying the same structure, she decided in advance how she was going to spend it.
→ She took the day back — honouring what happened in the past without feeling stuck there, and deciding what she wanted that date to look like going forward.
Common mistakes
Letting the date arrive unplanned
Without a decision, the day defaults to staring at the walls and feeling sorry for yourself. It then becomes one of those days on the calendar you just wish wasn't there — which compounds every year.
Choosing a generic gesture
The activity has to match who the person actually was. A ritual that doesn't express the specific trait you loved reads as distraction rather than honour, and won't survive as a tradition.
Treating it as staying stuck in the past
The point is honouring what happened without feeling stuck there. The framing question is forward-looking — how do I want to remember them moving forward, what do I want this year to look like.
Is it for you?
Best for
People facing a recurring hard date — a death anniversary, a divorce date, a birthday of someone gone
Not ideal for
Fresh acute grief where the pressure to perform an adventure would be its own burden
From the transcript
“we could stay home from work and stare at the walls and feel sorry for ourselves or we could go do something, and Lincoln was…”
“we rode mules into the Grand Canyon, we took flying trapeze lessons, we've done all sorts, swam with sharks one year, so we always look…”
“it's really turned into a day that we look forward to rather than one we would dread”
From the episode
Amy Morin: Build Mental Strength to Overcome Any Obstacle
Amy Morin