A guide to spontaneity: spend some time exploring beyond the boxes in your life

So much of our lives are spent in boxes. We wake up in a box, our house, then walk into a smaller box, our car, to go to wherever else we want to go, which is most often another box. When we really think about it, how much of our day do we spend outside of boxes? How often do we live outside the box?

There are many reasons that people choose to spend time outside of the box, an important one being time spent in nature. However, I want to focus on an integral part of life the box life usually denies us, that being spontaneity.

When we live our life in an enclosed space with a set number of people, a set climate and even a set schedule, there are only so many things that we leave open to chance.

Maybe the power in our home goes out during a storm, or the air conditioning in our car refuses to work. Yet the chances of meeting someone new, having an unexpected conversation or trying a new food are all pretty slim.

Think about it. How many of your favorite memories were planned in advance? For the ones that you did plan, did something unexpected happen that made it even more memorable or exciting? And how many of those memories occurred in your home, car or workplace?

While it is possible to have an exciting or memorable experience that is planned or takes place in your home, it is much more likely for such an experience to be unplanned and ‘outside the box.’ There is a reason that people love to travel, as travelling is often spontaneous and outside of our typical boxes.

The obvious solution is for us to sell our cars and become wandering nomads. Okay, I’m kidding. There are many realistic and feasible ways to live outside of the box. If we spend more time outside of our boxes by going on walks, biking or recreating outdoors, we will leave more in our lives up to chance. The likelihood that we will run into an old friend on the drive to campus is very unlikely, but entirely possible if we choose to walk.

Secondly, we can live our lives less beholden to our boxes. It is easy to become attached to our room, car or office, and spend little time elsewhere, even in other boxes. If we realize that many different boxes are open to us, we can be more open to spontaneity.

For example, if we choose to visit a friend’s dorm unexpectedly, study in the library or go to the cafeteria, we will have more unplanned experiences than if we were to only spend time with our roommates, study in our rooms and eat in our kitchens.

Spontaneity can be scary, and there is legitimate security in having spaces that we can be comfortable in. But let’s have our boxes work for us, and not the other way around.