Interesting Days

Casper, WY

A friend said to me the other day, "I like reading your blog because you do interesting things.  If I wrote a blog, it wouldn't be interesting.  Maybe later my life will be more interesting and be worth blogging about."

The thing is... my life is interesting by design.  I made it this way - I made it something that other people would want to hear about.

It's not like at some point I looked around and noticed that my life had become interesting, and therefore I should write about it.  I made a conscious decision to make my life interesting - in this case, by taking the trip, but even before the trip, I was making that decision as much as possible.  When I first moved to Peoria, I decided I was going to take road trips - so I did.  I went to New York, Denver, New Orleans twice, Tallahassee, South Carolina, Washington D.C., and tons of shorter trips too.

I decided I wanted to go to as many Nickel Creek concerts as I could - so I did.  I decided I wanted to start rock climbing - so I did.  I decided I wanted to go to 25 concerts last year - so I did.  I decided to go to (and eventually be one of the leaders for) the No Pants Train Ride in Chicago every year - so I did.  I decided to go to the Philippines and visit my friend Laura who was there with Peace Corps - so I did.  I wanted an interesting life, so I found interesting things to do.

And while many of those are expensive, being interesting doesn't have to be - sometimes I'll just see a building that looks like it would be fun to climb, so I will.  Or I'll find a way to get around paying $11 to get into a national park.  One of the people I stayed with recently talked about hitchhiking from Seattle to Minneapolis, and it's an awesome story - and didn't cost much.  Even just talking to the right people can make your life more interesting.  One of the people who hosted me for a night told a hilarious story about the first guy he hosted and how he was hitchhiking around the country.

The point is - if you want life to be exciting, make it that way.  Find something to do that most people wouldn't do, and just go do it.  Climb a building.  Take a road trip.  Talk to a homeless guy on the street for five minutes.  Do something that someone else would want to read about on your blog.

In fact, you can just make that a homework assignment: tomorrow, do something exciting.  If you have a blog, post about it there.  If you don't, post a comment here or send me an email.  Do something interesting, and give yourself another story to tell.