The essence of pleasure is spontaneity. -Germaine Greer
I am a planner. I like to have my entire day planned out, minute by minute, in order to be able to most maximize what I am putting in my day, and while this is a great quality, it is a quality that can be detrimental if not monitored. Germaine Greer’s words above remind me of the great value of spontaneity, and to be quite honest, I haven’t recently allowed myself the necessary dose of spontaneity in my life that I need.
I know firsthand the value of spontaneity, and the moments in which I embraced such pleasure are moments in which I cherish beyond measure. There’s a grey area between thinking too much and letting yourself be free from thought in order to pursue spontaneous pleasure. How much freedom do you allow in your life to live and are you willing to let go of control and not know where life is going to take you? Spontaneity is a pleasure that, once experienced, you will want more of, so start allowing it into your life and let life take you where it will. Stop over-thinking and start just trusting.
My top spontaneous moments in memory are as follows — proof that a little bit of the unexpected can change your life and your heart forever:
- When I jumped on a train in Europe with my best friend Melissa, without direction, purpose or a goal destination, and ended up in Brugge, Belgium where we spent a few aimless days eating the best chocolate of my life and cruising the picturesque streets on rented antique bicycles.
- Deciding to start this blog in Fall of 2010, knowing that I wanted to write but that I was scared to share it, so, promptly biting the bullet, I posted my first post and shared away.
- The night that I couldn’t sleep from anxiety and decided to drive myself to the gym at 2:00 AM to run, even though at that time I hated running. That spontaneous midnight run changed my life and made me fall in love with a sport that I never wanted to give a chance. Without that run I would have never ventured into the waters of the triathlon world and would have never completed an Ironman. A spontaneous run changed my life trajectory.
- The time in college when I was abroad in Nice, France and decided to rent roller blades to get to my hostel three miles away. It was then that I learned two valuable lessons: Nice isn’t flat (in fact, there are Alps there) and I stink at roller blading and know that I should not roller blade in traffic ever again.
- Every unplanned, last minute weekend vacation that I have ever taken. These mini-vacations (be them to Paris, to Pennsylvania, or just for a picnic) have twice the pleasure packed within them simply because they were expected jewels of wonderfulness.