Chapter 4: Check Your Pulse – Are You “Alive”?
“How vain it is to sit down and write when we have not stood up to live.” – Henry David Thoreau
Experiences. Emotional Wealth is all about positive experiences. And, to me, positive experiences are those that make you feel alive.
While the previous chapters have taught us how to build an emotional support system, raise our emotional ceiling, and deepen our emotional well, positive experiences are what fill that well.
Without experiences, our lives are for naught. We would have nothing to support, no ceiling to hit, and no well to fill. Experiences are not only part of the human condition, but can be described as the human condition itself.
Why are we here? What’s our purpose? What impact will we leave on the world?
While I have answers to none of these questions, I can tell you that the only way to answer them, even in partiality, is to go out and live.
Experiences enrich our lives. Any experience, good or bad, in which you feel truly alive, is a positive one. So therefore, if you follow the Principles layed out in this book, any experience should make you feel alive, which will be remembered as a positive experience, which will enrich your life and increase your Emotional Wealth.
In this sense, there are no bad experiences, only bad mindsets that view various experiences through a lens of negativity. With this in mind, it’s time for us to get busy living, or get busy dying.
Expand Your Definition of “Exciting”
Every experience you have should excite you. If you have one that doesn’t, then it should be leading directly to an experience that will. Using your knowledge to “treat every day like an experiment,” even the most mundane tasks should be seen as a chance for personal growth.
If you look at the world with this viewpoint, walk around as a French flaneur, and think of yourself as an urban explorer, there are no shortages of exciting experiences.
Every trip on public transit, line at Starbucks, or – heaven forbid – appointment at the DMV, is a chance for an experience that will enrich your life. Look around! Who do you see? What do you observe?
Answering these questions is the literal practice of forming connections between knowledge and principles. Some of the best teachers of life are strangers you meet on the street. Don’t be afraid to have single serving friends, i.e., friends whom you speak with for a few moments, only to never see them again.
Sometimes it’s those small experiences that enrich our lives the most.
Don’t be afraid to explore the world, starting with your front yard. Be eager about the potential to meet someone interesting in your exploration, and be happy you’re providing yourself with stimulus you’ve never experienced before.
To me, big cities are an urban playground. Living within a big city, however, can paradoxically force you to remain in your small little bubble, sticking to the neighborhood, restaurants, and eateries you know. This was a trap I fell into while living in San Francisco.
While the City was – and continues to be – exciting, I’d often find myself staying local, sometimes embarrassingly never leaving my street. And how easy it is to rationalize that small bubble! With coffee shops, bars, parks, and laundromats all within walking distance, convincing myself to even hop in a cab was hard.
But, as my experiences began to stale, I made a commitment to explore other parts of the City. Every Sunday I would head out on public transit and try a coffee shop in a new neighborhood (well, new to me). I did this every Sunday, and it literally changed my life.
I met gay people, I met straight people, I talked to homeless guys and gals, I hung out with ugly people, I hung out with beautiful people, and I can only imagine what category each of these people put me in.
My view of the world expanded little by little, every Sunday, and I was able to identify my likes, dislikes, and passions through this expanded view.
I saw buildings I liked and didn’t like, I met people I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy, I ate food and drank coffee that was delicious and terrible, and each of these experiences uncovered more of me to myself. Through these Sunday adventures I was even able to find the house I live in now!
And this doesn’t even include the impact of exploration outside of your own city.
If your local neighborhood can be that eye opening, then just think about how eye opening a neighboring city can be, or even a neighboring country. The greatest emotional gift you can give yourself is to experience other cultures and ways of life.
Talk about an eye opening experience. Immersing yourself in something foreign to you literally shocks your system. It wakes you up from your societal slumber and gives you the chance to approach life with a different way of thinking.
I’d really recommend reading Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. Sometimes, even if we love to travel, we have to give ourselves the permission to break free of our bubble. Too easy it is to stick with what we know. Reading travel books like Vagabonding will help spark your mindset shift.
Regardless, no matter where the experience occurs, everything in life should excite you, because every time you step outside your door you’re giving yourself a chance to grow. Through this growth, you are able to enrich yourself with Emotional Wealth.
You might not be stepping outside of your comfort zone (or maybe you are!), but you are definitely stepping outside your physical zone. So, the next time you hop on a trolley, take a bus, fly in a plane, or even walk down the street, experience it with an open mind and even wider eyes.
Living Vicariously With Others
“Since we don’t know where we’re going, we have to stick together in case someone gets there.” – Ken Kesey
Sharing is caring, no? When it comes to your emotional riches, sharing is mandatory.
We are social creatures, we humans. In a metaphorical sense, we are pack animals, living in a herd society. It’s natural that we gain Emotional Wealth directly from others, and give it too.
So while having new experiences is important, whether it be in India or your backyard (unless your backyard is in India, in which case, pick another place that signifies “far away”), it’s equally important that you share some of those experiences with others.
You don’t have to share every experience with someone; some of my most monumental and life changing mindset shifts came when I was alone. But, some of my greatest emotional joys have come in the company of others.
There’s just something about a shared experience that carries a certain type of weight. While all experiences increase your Emotional Wealth, for some reason, experiencing a snippet of life with someone is just, well, different.
Maybe it’s because you have someone who understands the experience you went through. Maybe it’s because you’re able to see the same experience through someone else’s eyes. Or maybe it’s because you can see the personal growth in your counterpart, and it highlights some personal growth of your own.
Shared experiences allow you to both strengthen your existing emotional network as well as build a completely new one. There’s no bonding experience like an entirely new situation felt by two unique individuals.
Sure, standing in line at Starbucks can be as enlightening an experience as any, but when you step outside of your comfort zone with someone who’s stepping outside of theirs, whether it be to experience a new restaurant or new country, it has a profound effect on you.
I’m sure you’re thinking of someone right now. For me, when I think of shared experiences, I always think about the time my college buddy and I, with no plans or jobs, backpacked across Eastern Europe.
We remain friends to this day, and our travel adventures, both good and bad, bond us for life. We can drop communication for months (which, with our busy lifestyles, happens more than I’d like to admit), and pick up right where we left off.
I know we all have a person or persons like this. Think about how much better your life has become through the experiences you’ve shared. Well, use that as a lesson!
When you focus on experiences, both personal and shared, you literally focus on feeling “alive,” which adds to your emotional riches and makes you Emotionally Wealthy.
Where All the Magic Happens
Approaching life as an explorer, and focusing on both personal and shared experiences, kick starts your Emotional Wealth into overdrive. There is so much to experience that there’s no reason to feel emotionally poor. But don’t stop there. Don’t be content with physical exploration as a way to feel “alive.”
Metaphysical, or psychological explorations are equally important to your emotional riches and living a life of Emotional Wealth. You need to step outside of your emotional comfort zone as much as your physical one:
It may look corny, but the simple Venn diagram couldn’t be truer. And while it rings true for physical experiences as well, it is the most important aspect of your psychological experiences. I know, it can be argued that they’re one and the same.
And if you’d like to argue, I’m prepared to tell you that you’re right. At the root of every experience is a psychological metamorphosis that directly leads to a gain of emotional riches. And it happens, for lack of a better word, through “magic.”
The magic begins when you are in the deep end, seemingly unable to swim. The magic begins when you bite off more than you can chew. The magic begins when you have an “oh shit” moment. And ultimately, the magic happens when you decide to swim, swallow, or say “fuck it.”
Increasing your Emotional Wealth by stepping outside of your comfort zone breeds a level of confidence and personal growth unmatched by anything, because it’s the summation of Emotional Wealth.
Stepping outside of your comfort zone allows you to build a strong network of mentors, peers, and mentees.
Just think about having Mark Zuckerberg as one of your mentors. Impossible! How uncomfortable would that be to reach out to him? How unworthy you must be to ask for his advice and time!
Well, first off, that’s a self-limiting belief or success paradigm. But think about how strong your network would be with him in it. Think about how motivated you’d be to succeed if he was one of your five people!
It’s only by stepping outside of your comfort zone, telling yourself that you’re worth it, and committing yourself to meeting him, that your network will strengthen.
Stepping outside of your comfort zone allows you to surround yourself with love that matters.
Think about how uncomfortable it is to even think about the word “love,” let alone seek it out. This, my friend, is one of the worst self-limiting beliefs we share as humans. The belief that we aren’t even worth the love we deserve.
How socially uncomfortable is it to try and meet your significant other? How uncomfortable – even downright scary – is it to open up emotionally to someone? How uncomfortable is it to tell your friends and family you love them, and not let them forget?
But, how magical it is when you step outside of your comfort zone, do all of those things, and surround yourself with people who truly love you for who you are!
Finally, stepping outside of your comfort zone allows you to increase your level of emotional understanding.
Is it even possible to expand your knowledge, connect the dots, and create as well as understand theories of how the world operates, without stepping outside of your comfort zone?
It’s only through the accumulation of knowledge, and then testing it in the real world, that you’re able to increase your understanding of life. You need to have experiences that excite you, experiences that anger you, experiences that frighten you, and even experiences in which you have no particular emotion at all.
And it’s only by stepping outside of your comfort zone that you’re able to have all these emotional experiences.
The combination of these experiences, resulting in a better understanding of both yourself and the world, is true magic.