Why Spontaneity is Your Friend, and How to Embrace it

Friends come and go, but spontaneity will last a lifetime, conferring many benefits along the way. While life itself is random in nature, adding randomness to it will still enrich it and make it feel more unpredictable and engaging. The mystery of life is what makes the random events more interesting. If you have ever taken a spontaneous trip somewhere you will know what I mean.

Two things happen when you take a spontaneous trip somewhere: first, you don’t know what to expect. Your expectation bar is set so low that your acceptance of the outcome of your experience is a lot higher — you relax and become open to what happens. Therefore, when acceptance runs high, so does happiness. Second, reaction to the random stimuli sparks familiarity. When familiarity runs high in a new situation, comfort levels begin to rise, and we can presume comfort brings happiness.

Psychologist Markus Jokela of the University of Helsinki found that, “cognitive ability, apart from income, played a significant part in American migration choices.” The long-term study, conducted with a nationally representative sample over the years of 1979 to 1996, found that those who moved from more rural places to central cities scored higher on intelligence. Also, those who lived in a central city at the outset of the study and moved to the suburbs scored higher in intelligence than those who started in the city and stayed put. There were many variables involved in the study, but the one concrete take-away was this: folks with high cognitive percentiles tended not just to move to larger cities, but to move around more.

Am I implying that a spontaneous lifestyle is better than an organized one? Not quite. However, in social situations you may find this demeanor to be more rewarding. I digress.

Imagine your first date. With anyone. What did it entail?

Now, imagine your first date with another person. Notice much of a difference? Probably not.

The lack of spontaneity and perceived organizational dating culture of society have limited your date to (usually) dinner, a movie, or bowling. All of which involve an activity being more invested in than the very person you are trying to get to know, i.e. deciding on what food you’re going to eat, staring at a screen for 2+ hours, or figuring out how to set up the score tracker in your lane.

What we fail to realize in all this is that the more spontaneous and creative we get with our social time, the better we are able to understand each other and learn from our environment. Unfortunately, you may not always get the most positive responses from your spontaneous requests. Not to mention the interrogation session that shortly follows those requests. For example, last week I asked a girl I recently met if she wanted to go for a walk through the Stanford campus. Such a simple proposition evolved into, “How long?”, “I’ve already seen the campus, can we go somewhere else?”, “Who’s coming?”, “Is there some event going on?” It got to the point where I lost any feeling of excitement and didn’t want to want to go out with this person anymore. I responded with, “Why does it matter? It’s a nice night.”

Why do we always have to have a reason to do something, go somewhere, be someone?

We live in a culture of information, nonexistent anonymity, and nourishing the expected. This culture shifts our perspective towards uninteresting, boring, and unoriginal plans where the outcome is mostly consistent and expected. We miss out on all geniality as a result of this. Our internal compasses can no longer distinguish what is different, so we languish in such common thoughts as, “All guys are the same,” or “We had a lovely dinner, the chives were on point.”

The issues don’t stop there. We resort to the typical, “What do you do? What are your hobbies?” at the dinner table because that obviously says a lot about a person and is considered getting to know someone. What ever happened to the phrase, “show don’t tell” or “say more with less.” You can talk all you want about your fancy car and how you like long walks on the beach, but at the end of the day actions speak louder than words. In other words, spontaneity speaks louder than words.

What is even scarier is that the girl I recently met expressed similar responses to that of a girl I’ve known for years, leading me to suspect maybe it isn’t that the person is defensive, but instead these reactions are the fault of society’s structure, script, and fear of the unknown. We have completely lost our ability to stay invested in someone else by paying close attention to their behavior, particularly when they deal with unfamiliarity. Unfamiliar situations bring out the true colors of one’s capability to handle an experience. They add to the unique flavor of a person’s personality, which may have otherwise been considered average at a dinner table conversation. This is what gives you an edge in the likelihood of that second date.

Why is it so socially unacceptable to be personal on a first date? How much is too personal? Does it matter? Now, what if you substitute the personal events in your past with the personal events that are occurring RIGHT NOW? Creating new beautiful memories that are so extraordinary that it gets very personal very fast? But don’t talk about it — Remember, you are too busy enjoying the company of the person who you are sharing it with.

Now imagine that you’re telling all your friends about it: That walk in the park just turned into a journey in the park consisting of saving a lost puppy named Carl, jumping through majestic fountains, sneaking into a lecture room, absorbing wisdom from a grandmother visiting her grandson, and eating berries off of the forbidden path.

All of what you have just read happened; it happened to me and the girl with all the questions.

Although it didn’t work out between us, she told me she will never forget that moment we had shared together, that she will hold onto it for the rest of her life. The true reward for me in all of that was getting to know such a personal, unseen side of someone just after meeting them.

And let me tell you, that’s no walk in the park.

W hy Your Brain Needs Spontaneity

Becoming a more spontaneous individual is not merely good for your social life and emotional health — it’s better for your brain, too.

In the past, we believed our brains settled into being largely static entities by the time we hit adulthood, that they had physically developed inasmuch as they could, our personalities had been shaped by our childhood experiences, and our level of relative intelligence was set. This was the hand we’d been dealt and it was immutable.

This view, it turns out, was actually dead wrong; our brains are, in reality, extremely malleable, dynamic, “plastic” organs. They can be shaped — and enriched — by new experiences right into old age, and if we neglect to keep them supplied with novel experiences, it can actually harm them.

Every time we have a new experience, our brains grow new neurons and form new pathways of communication, helping to combat age-related neural loss. According to Arnold Scheibel, MD, former director of the brain research institute at UCLA, the brain is “hardwired to become alert to anything new and exotic.” Why? The reason lies with our distant ancestors: “It’s an evolutionary survival mechanism that developed when we had to look out for predators,” explains Scheibel.

This “novelty response”, as psychiatrists call it, can help to prevent Alzheimer’s and dementia; “Having a new thought or experience stimulates dendritic growth in nerve cells, expanding brain volume.” Naturally, this combats the very brain shrinkage that is a hallmark of these degenerative conditions.

Dr. Scheibel has one main line of advice for anyone looking to retain their mental agility, and therefore their overall well-being, for the rest of their lifetime:

“People should not only remain mentally active, but also take up new pursuits” in order to “build up brain structure and function.”[1]

How to Become More Spontaneous

As enticing as all of this sounds — and as great as the rewards are — many of us find it hard to shake off the effects of society’s programming and become more spontaneous. If you’re not used to approaching life with an innate sense of adventure and wonder, it can be a surprisingly difficult habit to get into, and your attempts to break with habit and convention can feel forced, artificial, even nerve-wracking. This is especially true for introverts, who might find doing as I did on my date — walking up to someone and suggesting a walk — next to impossible without some spontaneity practice beforehand.

Like all great changes, the choice to live more freely must begin with developing a new attitude; as author Marcel Proust expressed it, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

To make your journey into leading a more spontaneous life a bit easier, I’ve compiled a handful of proven methods that help us to get out of our shells and break the monotony that’s become so familiar — and so poisonously comfortable.

1. Examine — and destroy — limiting belief systems.

Limiting belief systems are not just those obvious prejudices against groups of people or practices that sometimes result from strict religious beliefs or being brought up in a socially conservative household; instead, a limiting belief system is anything that keeps you bound to spontaneity-killing convention.

Think talking to strangers is “weird”? That’s a limiting belief system, one that prevents you from truly noticing those around you and exploring new, creative ways to get to know them. Think you’ll “mess up” if you try a new hobby or change how you do things with a current pursuit (for example, trying to draw in a new style)? Another limiting belief.

Most people avoid novel experiences because they fear failure, or believe they lack the time or money for them. You need to learn, first and foremost, that the only thing to fear is stagnation, and that time and money can be made (and even if you do truly lack money, there’s an infinite range of perfectly free new experiences out there if you learn to just look for them).

2. Learn to see through the eyes of a child.

If you think back far enough, you can probably remember a time when everything was new, joyful, and wondrous: Childhood.

The secret to rediscovering this state doesn’t lie in forgetting all the experiences that made you the adult you are today, or even in recovering some kind of “lost innocence”; rather, the key to seeing the world through the eyes of child is rediscovering your curiosity.

Become curious about people around you: Instead of asking someone, “How are you?” by force of pure habit, really look at them — the expression on their face, their body language, their gaze — and take a true interest in who they are and how they are feeling. Can you help them? Can you learn from them?

Likewise, remember that there is a phenomenal amount out there that you don’t yet know, and so you should try to learn at least one new thing each day. Ask yourself the big questions: “Why are we here? How does the universe work?”, etc. Even if you know we may never know the answers, the attitude of seeking will keep your eyes open to the miracle of life that is unfolding all around you.

3. Stop wasting time.

As mentioned above, the aim in becoming more spontaneous is not to lead a totally disorganized life; there’s no need to leave your job, give up on your education, and so on; in fact, having goals and dreams and a sense of direction is just as important to our mental health as trying new things. Instead, you need to stop coasting through all the spare time you already have, and fill all your formerly unproductive hours with new and enriching pursuits.

Before you say, “But I don’t have time, I work/study all day!”, consider the following statistics, which come directly from Nielsen’s most recent “Total Audience Report” and reveal the amount of time per day that Americans spend idling in front of electronic devices:

· Watching live television: 4 hours, 32 minutes

· Watching time-shifted television: 30 minutes

· Listening to the radio: 2 hours, 44 minutes

· Using a smartphone: 1 hour, 33 minutes

· Using Internet on a computer: 1 hour, 6 minutes[2]

Most people have much more time than they realize, they have just gotten so deep into the habit of frittering it away in front of screens that they believe their days are packed solid with activity.

4. Stop waiting for the “perfect” time.

The final hurdle that stands in the way of spontaneity for many of us is the idea that we need to wait for the “perfect” time to do what we wish to do. We say to ourselves things like, “I’ll go on that tropical vacation I’ve always dreamed of when I finally lose 30 pounds and look great in a bikini,” and, “I’ll actually get started on that novel I have wanted to write for over a decade in a few months’ time, when I have a week off work…”

Now, imagine what would have happened had I waited for the “perfect” time to ask the girl I mentioned previously on a date: There would have been no thrill of saving a lost puppy, no jumping through majestic fountains, no sneaking into a lecture room, no learning from a wise old grandmother.

If I had instead waited for the “perfect” time to ask her on the “perfect” date, it’s likely that the mundane nature of my request would have failed to even catch her attention, and she may well have declined altogether; after all, what girl doesn’t get many requests to have a boring dinner or movie date over the course of her lifetime? My random idea of taking a walk right at that moment was no doubt far more intriguing.

The lesson here is that no matter what it is you really want to do, the time to get started is now. There is no wrong moment to have a novel experience, no wrong moment to start to really live… So get out there and learn to make the unfamiliar, familiar. Your brain, body, and soul will thank you for it.