2-3-4 Friday 13 Sep

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

A few days ago, I had a counselling conversation with a client. He shared about how he lost his excitement as he was growing up.

I remember that in high school, I was always very excited. About the smallest things.

About going for an outing. To the badminton courts to play.

Even about having a new lesson in a new place.

But over the years, that excitement seems to have been lost. As you grow up, it just seems that there’s a higher bar for being excited.

The small things are no longer as exciting.

I think some part of it has to do with me being excited and then being disappointed.

Why?

Good question.

I didn’t know how to answer that, because I had also seen that in myself.

Despite having experiences that were infinitely richer than what we had than we were young, I didn’t seem to have the same excitement.

But first off, what does it mean to be excited?

It happens differently for different people, but I will tell you how some have described it.

I look forward to what’s going to happen.

I mark it on my calendar, and I’m waiting for the day that it happens.

I prepare a lot for it, and am generally optimistic about what will happen.

So the question seems to be,

despite having richer experiences as adults, why don’t we capture the same excitement as children?

Before you think that being excited is just for children, and is not that important, I urge you to think back to the last time you were excited.

Beyond it feeling good, you probably

1. Prepared better
2. Were generally happier, and thus easier to deal with
3. Had a better relationship with people around you.

So why aren’t we as excited today?

Part of that seems to be around how we are now having a higher bar to excitability. Many people have this idea that emotions are this curve where we have to try reaching the summit.

Imagine two axes, with the x-axis being time, and the y-axis being your emotions. Draw a line through the y-axis. That’s your bar to excitability.

We expect experiences to pass that bar, for us to be excited.

But perhaps it’s more about shifting the bar downwards, so that we see more things as exciting. How do we do that?

If we look at the three elements of excitement, we would realise they comprise of:

1. Expectations of what is exciting
2. Novelty of the experience
3. Curiosity we have towards the experience

We can’t change how novel the experience is. The only thing we can shape is our expectations, and our curiosity towards the experience. And that’s the thing we should try to change.

1 talk

Excitement is not an experience, but a perspective.

1 tip

Watch a father entertain his child, and one of the first tricks he learns is how to play peek-a-boo.

It’s amazing how such a simple game of hiding your face, and then reappearing a few moments later, can prompt that much squealing for a child.

Simple things cause great excitement. But as we grow up, the bigger things like traveling to a far-flung country, having novel experiences like seeing the white coral reefs under the seas of Bali, no longer seem as exciting.

One thing to learn perhaps is from the father who plays peek-a-boo. To close our eyes, and to open them anew.

To see the same experiences, only differently. One way is to ask,

what’s new ways can I see this?

I tried that recently with a small road trip to Johor Bahru, just beside Singapore. I had done this trip 6 times, and it was never exciting.

There were long queues for the bus, crowded bodies that left you feeling clammy, and air-conditioning that left you feeling hot.

Singlish (the Singaporean variant of English) has a saying “自-high”, or to make yourself excited about the smallest things.

I was singing music to myself, laughing at the donuts on the sidewalk, and doing everything I could to be happy.

So as cliche as this sounds, excitement is a choice.

Don’t just play peek-a-boo with the next kid you see. Play it with the next experience you have.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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