chapter 24: everything I could've done
an informal guide to spontaneity
I am not a spontaneous person.
An overthinker? Yes. Anxious? Supremely. If I’m doing something, I like for it to be well thought out, the plan infallible. I want the perfect outfit, the ideal commute, and ample time to envision what it’ll be like to actually be doing *the thing*. Whether it’s writing to you or visiting my friends across the country or getting ice cream, I spend more time thinking than doing.
There are so many ideas I have, so many activities and hobbies I’m interested in doing. And yet, most of my time is spent ideating and researching.
Is this the perfect brunch spot?
Do I want to smell like this perfume at the office today?
Where should I sit at my friend’s birthday dinner?
I thought I was just being prepared - making sure these small details wouldn’t distract from my enjoyment. I deserve to feel good about my decisions, right? Even the inconsequential ones?
The decisions pile up, though. If you get too bogged down in the details, the decision fatigue is, well… fatiguing. It uses your energy on these aspects that nobody will remember, taking you out of the moment and into an ideal universe where everything is perfect.
All the thinking, all the deciding — it’s exhausting.
It’s why I’ve taken a break from writing here recently, though it feels like I was just getting started. I would get an idea, overthink about how it would be received, get bogged down in the details, and abandon it in hope of something better. I usually hate cliché phrases, but “perfect is the enemy of done” seems all too relevant to my perpetual perfectionist quandaries.
And it’s not just writing. It’s like that with so many aspects of my life where I want to move forward, but instead find myself stuck in a loop.
There are so many things I could’ve done if I just trusted myself and went with it instead of overthinking things to oblivion.
Clearly, it’s not working.
So I’m trying something new: I’m just doing it (not in the Nike way)
Here’s how I’ve been pushing myself to ~be spontaneous~ and “live in the moment” in a realistic, non-cringe way:
Going places alone!
I went to one of the many launch parties for Sally Rooney’s newest novel, Intermezzo, unexpectedly alone. It seemed like everyone had shown up in a girl group, and I thought about slinking to a corner to pretend to read the book. Instead, I remembered the words of our lord and savior
from and talked to strangers!!
It’s so intimidating going to an *event* alone, but I realized that whether I was talking to an emotional support friend or by myself in the corner, the experience would be the same… so I changed it! I ended up meeting some really sweet girls and we all exchanged Instagrams :-)
Last-minute plans
One of the things that kills me about New York is how far everything is. It’s just a huge city, so there’s no way around it, but being spontaneous is hard when most of your friends are a 30-minute train ride away
But, a few weeks ago, I made same-day plans to go to the hardware store near Julianne. It was all so low-stakes! So easy! So novel!!
The kind of day where you leave the house with a tote bag, your phone, water, a book, and no plan
Something I realized recently: I don’t trust myself to fill my time.
I realized this during a semi-rare night at home alone. My precious recharge time! But instead of reading, cooking, or watching the last episode of Bridgerton, I decided the best use of my time would be deep-cleaning the couch. Like, de-pilling, sprinkling with baking soda, vacuuming, the whole shebang.
It was productive, and yet it felt like a giant waste of time.
The problem is this: you need unstructured time to prove to yourself that you can function without a plan, otherwise you’ll blank without one
Going to the farmer’s market and just buying what looks good
Spontaneity is a form of creativity. It doesn’t just manifest out of thin air; you need to create situations to use and practice it.
Cooking is one of the most low-stakes ways to practice. If what you make isn’t good, the worst thing that happens is you have a sub-par meal. And unless it’s truly *bad*, you can usually fix it to at least be edible
In a world of rising food costs and endless meal prep, it’s also so liberating to reintroduce joy and creativity into such a routine task. I don’t have the time to cook a new dish for every meal, but it’s always so lovely to make something completely unplanned!
Remembering that novelty makes life feel longer
So many articles but this one is as good as any!
Productivity culture makes it seem like we should live the same day on repeat to optimize ourselves, but the thought of living like that one episode of SpongeBob where Squidward moves to the gated squid community makes me want to uproot my life and move to another country immediately.
And it makes sense if you think about it. When we were kids, life felt long, each season distinct, each year defined so concretely. I used to think it was because of the imposed structure from school and extracurriculars, but it was mostly because so many new things were happening to us all the time. Learning new subjects, seeing new sights for the first time, experiencing significant emotional milestones…
While nothing compares to being a fresh human, it wouldn’t hurt us to approach the world with more child-like wonder. It’ll make you live “longer,” too, so it’s really a win-win.
Personally, I’m forcing myself to dive in head-first. In the past few weeks, I spontaneously(ish):
Signed up for a perfume class
Tried a new smoothie recipe
Planned a trip to see Ally in Austin (🤠)
Bought lion’s mane mushrooms at the farmer’s market
Took a day trip to Sleepy Hollow (report: neither sleepy nor hollow)
Read at a cute café after work
Wrote at the library
And even got a new haircut! (Despite my fears)
What have you been wanting to try that you haven’t yet? Let me know in the comments!!
XOXO,
Madeleine
Next week’s newsletter will be about appreciating the minutiae of “average” days! Because not every day can be novel and spontaneous