We are creatures of habit. That’s not such a bad thing. If we had to figure life out every day anew we wouldn’t get very far. But while habits help us with our need for efficiency, they don’t do much to help us progress. Habits are all about maintaining the status quo. But what if your status quo isn’t good enough?
To go beyond where we are we need to incorporate new influences and sources of inspiration into our lives. We’ve got to try new things. But we’re so risk averse. We want to know in advance whether it will taste good. Sure, if we follow this approach we can protect ourselves from bad experiences (sort of). But in so doing we close ourselves off to the possibility of finding magic. So here are some suggestions:
- Try new foods.
- Buy a product even if you don’t know why. Just to play with it and see if it can change your life for the better somehow.
- Go on a date with someone that doesn’t fit exactly what you’re looking for. You can weed out creeps but do you really need a 27 year old financial analyst who grew up in Boise and likes tailgating?
- Hire someone that isn’t like all your other employees.
- Watch a movie that doesn’t sound interesting.
- Subscribe to a new blog.
- Try a new sexual position.
- Take an hour and drive randomly in and beyond your neighborhood.
- Seek out people you don’t agree with and talk with them. Not at them, with them.
- Try a new sexual position while eating new foods.
Get it?
Now I’m not advocating stupidity here. Don’t have unprotected sex with strangers you meet in the subway just for the thrill of it. Don’t hire people that are manifestly unqualified. Don’t eat strange berries. And you don’t have to try bungee jumping or the like. It’s not about extreme or crazy. It’s about new experiences.
Perhaps many of these experiences will turn out to not be that interesting. Perhaps many of them will prove useless to your development. But maybe they won’t.
Isn’t it worth it?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article! I always try to do actively do something new every day. I do things like get dressed a different way or read different magazines. I have explored different categories of books. Plus, my favorite which is talk with new people when we cross paths. This is always delightful.
Tom
PS I could not help but think about your new fondness for yogurt when you wrote about sex and food. This thought was not a pretty picture.
Tom:
It is no surprise that you are one of the most creative and innovative people around.
As for yogurt: When I was about 18, I was in Israel. I decided to lay out by the pool at my hotel with no sunscreen and fall asleep. Brilliant huh? I got a horrible sunburn. It was excruciating. The Arab workers at the hotel advised me to spread leben (Middle Eastern yogurt) all over my body. At that time I hated yogurt. Let’s just say the saving grace was that I had been wearing a bathing suit and, thus, did not have to put the leben ALL over my body.
My relationship with yogurt has clearly improved. But it is still touch and go. Well, maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it…
Thanks for reading the blog. I hope you will soon read it on your iPad!