Do What You Wouldn’t

…a good friend of mine and i were at lunch together one day and she got to telling me a story about one summer of her life. she explained to me that she made a promise to herself to do the exact opposite of what she would normally do all summer long. this meant that if she wanted to go out, she would instead stay home and read, or do something by herself. however, if she felt the need to stay in, she would force herself to go out and experience things. if she was out at a bar or at a party, and there was a guy she thought was cute but normally wouldn’t have hit on for whatever reason, then she would make herself go for. then again, if she thought hitting on the guy would be successful and normally would go for it, she would play it cool and wait to see what happened on his end.

the list of examples goes on and on, and eventually ends up in mexico, but you get the basic point. the idea is to push yourself outside of your normal limitations, to get yourself to think and act outside of the box that you put yourself in. no matter how free we all think we are, we still all do box ourselves in which inevitably ends up with you imposing limits upon yourself. this method of doing what you normally wouldn’t helps to break yourself out of that, even if only for a little while.

and this philosophy doesn’t even have to encompass every action in your daily life, nor does it have to affect major decisions in your life that end up putting you in a different country (unless you want it to). it can be as simple as eating somewhere different than where you normally eat every day. or maybe just ordering something different than your usual. do you get an onion bagel everyday for lunch? then get a poppyseed bagel next time. do you eat meat with every meal? try a meal without it. do you always just sit there staring off into space on the bus? try reading a book or talking to the person next to you.

just try it for a little while. break up the monotony of your everyday life. take yourself out of your little zone of comfort and see the world through a different perspective, at least for a moment. you don’t have to commit to any of this forever, but who knows…maybe you’ll like some of it.

go and do something you wouldn’t normally do
if nothing else, it’ll hopefully make your day a lot more interesting