Interesting people have crazy badass life experiences. They go out and do crazy shit and then later they captivate an awe inspired crowd with the tales of their adventures.
But do you think that before an interesting person goes out they always plan on swimming with dolphins and crazy shit like that? NOO!... or at least very rarely. They are just much better at putting themselves in positions for interesting opportunities to present themselves, and when they do they don't hesitate to jump on them.
I'm sure you've noticed the Yes Man pic at this point, and for those of you in the know I'm not going to tell you to say yes to everything. But there is a lesson in this movie that I use every day of my life.
Always choose action over inaction. Think about it, think about the number of potential opportunities you've let pass you by because you decided to not take action (and for the sake of this article I consider saying yes to an invitation action where ignoring/declining invitations is inaction). Interesting people don't let opportunities to take action pass them by. Even if it's something as trivial as going to the movies with some friends vs just chilling at home. You know that there is no adventure to be had just sitting on your ass at home. But there is a chance, though small, that something really badass could happen throughout the experience of going to the movies. Think about all of the cute girls you've seen in the last week. Imagine if you had taken action, gone up to each of them and introduced yourself. You missed out on tons of opportunities to meet cute interesting girls because you are afraid to take action. Let me tell you from experience that regret is 10x worse than rejection.
If it's this simple why would anyone choose inaction over action? Inaction is a result of fear. "I'm afraid of rejection" "I'm afraid that I might not have a good time" "I'm afraid that people will judge me". If you get one message from this article it should be FUCK FEAR! Interesting people have fear to the same extent as everyone else but they have learned to say fuck you to the fear. I view fear as a challenge. When I feel fear I get angry at the fear and know that I have to beat it. I'm a very competitive person and this same thought process may not work for everyone but understand that fear is always going to be present in your life, everyone is afraid of something, and that to be successful in anything you must defeat your fear.
Fear doesn't want you to have fun adventures. You know the really shitty feeling you get when you allow fear to convince to take inaction? That feels shitty because you know that you just lost to fear. You know that you missed out on what could be a great opportunity. The feeling of losing to fear is the worst feeling in the world for me, worse than any other negative feeling that I could get by deciding to take action.
Here's an example of how being open to so stuff can lead to badass experiences...
About a week ago I get a call from a buddy inviting me and some guys I had over at my house to play xbox. There was literally NOTHING else going on that night. I tell him we'll head over, a friend of mine says this "Nothing cool is gonna happen tonight playing xbox" I told him that we were just sitting around here otherwise and going over to play xbox and maybe having a few drinks was better than nothing. While driving over to his house I see my old friend Maddie pulling into her driveway and stop to say hey. She invites us to this massive party out in the middle of nowhere. I call up my xbox buddy and we all head out. Turns out it was this massive underground rave, I had never been to a legit rave before so this was a crazy experience I met tons of new people and had some crazy stories to tell for sure. None of this would have happened if I listened to my friend that didn't want to go play xbox, not taken the action to say hey to Maddie, or not accepted the invitation to a random party that could have turned out really lame. I wouldn't have even known that I had missed out on anything.
Here's a story of how much regret sucks...
A couple of friends of mine are headed out to the movies and invited me. I had a long day and decided to just take it easy, I feel like this may have come from a subconscious fear of not wanting my day to possibly get any worse. A good friend of mine from Germany ended up going and no one was aware that we knew each other. Apparently I had come up in conversation and he had been trying to get ahold of me but this was his last night in town. I was really frustrated that I missed out on this opportunity to see a good friend even though I had a good chat with him on the phone. But it was definitely a learning experience.
This article is not telling you to say yes to everything, and though action is usually the best decision you have to think for yourself. But remember that you'll never have a fun adventure if you're too afraid to take the first step.
