Student, Apprentice, Polymath in training
Lawrencehe
0
Vote

Creating/Allowing Experiences

One thing that's been on my mind for the longest time was how to have great experiences.  Basically, there are two ways to have great experiences.  Either you plan what you want to experience, and ways of achieving that experience, or you say yes to opportunities for experiences that come your way. 

One thing that's been on my mind for the longest time was how to have great experiences.  There are two ways to have great experiences.  Either you plan what you want to experience, and ways of achieving that experience, or you say yes to opportunities for experiences that come your way. 

My problem was I thought of these two methods as separate.  I thought you either do one or the other.  Take for example travel.  If I completely plan my trip: where i will stay, what i will see/do; I may miss out on great opportunities to explore.  Yet, if I leave my schedule too open for opportunities, opportunities may never come your way, and I just might end up with no place to sleep.  More importantly, this problem arises when thinking about my career.  If I completely plan my career path lets say marketing consultant, then I may miss out on opportunities to be a manager, designer, sales representative, accountant, engineer, firefighter...you get the idea.  But if I don't plan my life, I probably won't even make it being a marketing intern, I might just pick a job that seems comfortable work there for life. 

I've concluded that these two methods however, don't have to be separate.  In Life Nomadic, Tynan writes that planning is essential for your trip, but you should be ready to ditch those plans at any moment.  This is the same in life, planning should be meticulously done, but always ready to be thrown away and re-planned.

These two methods however, don't have to be separate.  In Life Nomadic, Tynan writes that planning is essential for your trip, but you should be ready to ditch those plans at any moment.  This is the same in life, planning should be meticulously done, but always ready to be thrown away and re-planned.

Subscribe to Tynan

Do Something

Get new posts sent to you. If you change your mind later, unsubscribe with one click.

You're a member of this community! Use the buttons on the right to vote on this post or share it with others. Or leave a reply below.

Share

Vote

No bio set
Guest
Vote
Advanced options  
tynan.com/
Fighting the good fight - to make the body congruent with the soul... Old blog http://3rddimension.wordpress.com New blog http://sett.com/thetinyoctopus/
War in Heaven
0
Vote

For my career I went with the 'Create but allow' approach. I already had a plan set out for what I wanted to do and went through with it. During this process an opportunity opened up which ran counter to my plans but was a good opportunity regardless so I took it.

Creator of SETT. Adventurer.
Tynan
0
Vote

I think that's the key-- just being proactive. Don't count on things "just coming up", but if that does happen, make the rational choice and choose between then new opportunity and your plans.

hide

Read Next

Back Home

Life Nomadic is far from over, but today I'm in the US, back in Austin. We've been away from Austin for seven months and have circled the globe entirely. We're already planning more trips, but armed with experience, we don't plan on being on the road for such long stretches in the future.

For me the trip was an epic journey, one that I will remember in great detail for the rest of my life. We could have very easily stayed in Austin and had very little change in my life, but we didn't.

Instead we walked on the canal in Panama. We sat with friends under the cherry blossom trees in Tokyo. We looked out from the tallest building in the world in Taipei. We drove ATVs through the dunes of Qatar. In France we walked through rooms of bones in an unauthorized jaunt through the Paris Catacombs. We ran with the bulls in Spain and lived to tell the story.

Past, Present, Future

There's this new-age idea that we should all be completely in the present at all times, ignoring the past and the future. Some people go so far as to parrot phrases like "the present is the only thing that really exists", or "live every day like it's your last!". I disagree. I think that there's value in considering all three time periods, as long as they're looked at differently. The problem is that most people treat them in the same way.

Past

Take the past. Most people look at the past as something that could somehow be changed if they wished hard enough. They don't actually believe that, but they act like it, saying things like, "If only I had _____". A better way to see the past is like a series of completed experiments. Everything, from before you were born until the moment you read the previous sentence is now set in stone and cannot be changed. The value we can get from this is to learn from our mistakes, failures, and pure observation.

It's possible to live in the past, to rehash things that happened and associate their greatness or tragedy with the present. We are the product of nothing but the past, but on the other hand the past is only a series of experiments. We aren't bound to make the same mistakes, and we aren't guaranteed the same successes, especially if we can't emotionally distance ourselves from what has happened, and rationally extract all of the available lessons from it.

No bio set
Guest
Vote
Advanced options  
tynan.com/
Close