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Perhaps he's running from gambling debts, or from an unhappy marriage, or from the authorities after he accidentally caused the mayor's carriage to crash. Perhaps there's a rival who has completely overshadowed him and he wants to get out from under that shadow.
It might be the wizard's familiar who is driving this with plots to get him moving, or a relative (well-meaning or not) who thinks he hasn't met his true potential.
Is there anything in the mechanics of this character decided yet? The most minor things can sometimes provide inspiration.
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"...and don't you dare coming back until you made a name for yourself!"
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Arrange for another of the PCs to be the wizard's younger sibling. The wizard agrees to help said sibling with whatever crisis started the adventuring career of the younger sibling, not realizing that it would take months or years (basically, whatever the duration of the campaign is) to deal with what he thought would be a short, temporary situation.
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I considered playing a character whose spendthrift wife needed him to go adventuring to pay for her lifestyle.
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Maybe he promised his one true love that he would bring her a falling star they saw during a midnight picnic, and he is thrust into the world of adventure.
Maybe a friend of his (an adventurer!) needed help, and he gets in over his head.
Maybe he was kidnapped, somehow escaped, and is now trying to make his way back home.
Assassins are after him, so he joins an adventuring group for protection.
He was on a pilgrimage to a shrine of the goddess of sorcery when bandits attacked. Adventurers rescued him, and he joined their ranks.
He was conscripted.
He was cursed by hags. He is looking for a cure, to hide his condition, seeking power so he can get revenge.
He recently recovered from a fever, and realizes he needs to maximize his potential.
He is sharing his body with another spirit or soul or conjoined twin. Occasionally it takes over and seeks glory. He is also adventuring to seek a cure.
His hometown was destroyed, and he is seeking power to bring the assailants to justice.
He is seeking to escape an arranged marriage.
He has a new obsession that can only be quenched through adventuring.
A loved one was kidnapped, and only he has the power to rescue her.
He was framed for a magical mishap, and he has to go on the run so he can prove his innocence.
Adventurers or other monsters burrowed up from a dungeon below his cellar.
He was challenged to a magical duel. He has until the next full moon to gather enough power to defend himself--or flee the city in disgrace!
He got gentrified out. Now he walks the land.
He discovered a treasure map, and it seems like a sure thing!
He is the chaperone for a young and eager wannabe adventurer.
A cursed library book transformed him into a wizard.
It turns out that that group of like-minded individuals who liked to gather in that grotto under that big dead tree while wearing robes and weird masks and chanting wasn't just a chthonic entity appreciation society but really IS a cult!
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"I never asked for this."
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Can we get creative without all the hate for females?
whose spendthrift wife needed him to go adventuring to pay for her lifestyle.
Maybe a monster-demon-harpy-witch (with the same name as your ex-wife)
Crippling Alimony/Child Support payments
There's a real tone of misogyny running through these ideas
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She left an abusive relationship, but because of the old-boy network could not get any work so has left to make her fortune on her own?
Cursed/intelligent items - a geas-or-curse effect and/or simple repeated failures v. an item's Ego.
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He's married to a successful adventurer.
His husband managed to Save the World, while leaving him with the kids during the process.
Now he just needs some personal time away from the headaches now that hubby has Saved the World and it's only fair, right?
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Someone stole his identity and ran up enormous amounts of debt in his name, and now he has to pay it all off.
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An evil wizard who just happens to look just like him has been robbing folk and causing chaos all over the city... A friend with the local constables is aware he's not the culprit... but the chaos is rising and soon people might start to well take matters in their own hands..
The biggest problem in playing a 'reluctant adventurer', is that there is little incentive for them to continue adventuring after the immediate threat is mitigated.
The wizard feels obligated to provide for his ailing younger sibling, whose care and education are expensive and resistant to magical healing. He stumbled onto adventuring while trying to cover the costs of a suddenly urgent surgery. Now he uses a chunk of his loot to pay for medical bills. Of course he'd love to walk away from the adventuring life, but not until he has enough saved up to ensure that his little brother/sister will be ok. Besides, by this point his adventuring party are the only really good friends he has that can understand the messed up things he's experienced.
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People are posting a lot of great things you can weave into the characters back story. What kind of wizard are they? Motivations? Etc.
Going off of what we know now could be a reason that the small town or quiet life he leads is disrupted. The disruption could follow him or he could adventure to fix the disruption.
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For whatever reason (parallel dimension, occult ritual, wish of a hateful rival, curse of some higher or lower power, reality beginning to unravel), the Universe forgot him. He is now a perfect stranger to people who should know him : family, friends, enemies, colleagues, neighbours
Not only does he need to find the means to undo this, he also needs a quick and dirty way to make ends meet. Hence adventuring