PFE's and Why You Want Them
Have you ever seen a blue chicken before? In Washington DC?
I recently listened to a TED Talk by Kenneth Chabert entitled “Why Your Life Needs Novelty, No Matter What Your Age Is”. Sure, the title caught my eye but his opening paragraphs hooked me. He referenced psychological findings that suggested that older people, when reviewing their lives, tended to focus more on the experiences between the ages of 15 and 30. There’s apparently good reason for that. Think about it. Those years are jam packed with novel experiences. You graduate high school, choose a profession, sometimes a college, buy a house, find a life partner, maybe even have a child or two. Whew! That’s a lot of big events in 15 years. By the time you hit thirty, the days/months/years likely are already speeding by. No more powerful first experiences. Life repeats itself over and over. Perhaps, when viewed through one’s 60 or 70 year old eyes, life doesn’t seem so fulfilling anymore.
Here’s the good part. Mr Chabert suggests that instead of waiting for life to flip by like pages on a calendar, one after the other, how about spicing it up with PFE’s - Powerful First Experiences. He asserts that these kinds of experiences can change how you see yourself and how you see the world. They don’t have to be the same kind of Powerful First Experiences that overtook your life when you were 18 or 23 or 27. Those days and those types of shiny new moments might be history but Powerful First Experiences are still possible.
According to Mr Chabert, a Powerful First Experience can be any experience that allows you to do something you'd never thought you would do for the first time in a place that you never thought you would be in for the first time. Intention is what matters. He believes that the experience needs to be something that you have always wanted to do but, also, something that comes with a little bit of risk. It requires courage. Maybe it means taking a train across the country when you have never taken a train across the city. Or, it could mean attending your first meditation or yoga retreat in a place where you have never been before. Many of the people who traveled to view the full eclipse recently surely had a Powerful First Experience. Mr Chabert also suggests that one must switch up their environment, go for boldness, in order to get the most from a PFE.
I like this whole idea of PFE but I want to take it one step further. I think novelty in smaller doses can also broaden our world and sometimes even lead to new pursuits, friendships, ways of thinking. Novelty of any kind can change the way we see ourselves and the way we see the world. It can both challenge and excite us to try something new. But, even in small chunks, novelty can transform an ordinary day into an exceptional day. Maybe you break with the evening routine of catching some mindless TV and, instead, take a drive over to the coast to watch the moon rise over the ocean? Maybe you stick your neck out and volunteer to work on a voter registration drive one weekend? Who knows where that could go? What about a spontaneous weekend road trip? How daring could that be? I’m just saying that the potential is endless.
I confess. I’m not great about breaking out of the daily routine. Who knows why but I like my ruts. I HATE that I like my ruts. The point of this whole piece is to encourage myself to walk the talk. I can write about the value of PFE’s and I HAVE had a few of those in my post 30 year old days but it’s not a natural inclination for me. Even those small chunks of novelty don’t come easily for me. I long to be someone who can embrace the unfamiliar path. Sigh. I WANT to be that person. I just can’t convince all of me to jump into something that isn’t entirely known to me. Can you relate? Probably not since I think most people are all about adventure. I always think that everyone else LOVES doing something new. People make travel plans or entertainment plans with great gusto. They pack up their life and run off for a day or a week or a month. I, on the other hand, go in the other room and read my book. I swear, back in those 15 year old to 30 year old years, I was great at embracing novelty but I’ve lost the knack. I need strategies to break out. Got any?
Here’s the link to the original Ted Talk:
Thanks for sharing this with me JT. I think this is why I have loved traveling so much,especially to countries with different cultures.Surfing really helped fuel that desire to explore and get out there. I would recommend a book “Barbarian Days “ by William Finnegan. Bill was a staff writer for the New Yorker and has several books about politics,poverty etc covering SouthAfrica ,central America and the U S.This book is about traveling to some of the most remote locations in the world in pursuit of surfing waves no one else had discovered or been to. I was lucky enough to have been introduced to Bill a few years ago down in Baja. I usually camp near his group of friends the past several winters in the Seven Sisters region.
Heaven knows, it can be hard to push yourself out the door, don't I know it! Most of the time I find the initial planning of any to these "PFE's" to be fun and exciting, but then as the departure day draws near, I get plagued with anxiety. Why, why, WHY did I make these plans? It's just so much easier and comfier to stay home. But then, the day comes and I step into my adventure (whatever it is) and usually I get so caught up in the "novelty" (there's that word again!) and the excitement of the moment and almost always I am glad that I made the effort.
Just do it!