No one will ever to tell you to live your life impulsively — and for good reason. As a society, we value calculated thought and action, perceiving the very word "impulsive" as something negative and rebellious. Impulsive decisions can have detrimental consequences, leading to anything from broken bones to broken relationships.

And yet, we do them anyways.

I've never been an avid supporter of impulsive decisions and yet, over the past couple of months I've started to realize how important impulse is. Although it may not feel familiar, taking chances and jumping in head first into unknown territory can lead to some of the most rewarding results (and if not, then a lot of funny stories to laugh back on).

Impulse decisions are often times how people advance in their careers, trusting their instinct and doing something that might not necessarily make the most economical sense at the time. It's the way I got a second piercing when I was only supposed to be at the mall eating cheesecake with my friends. Impulse is what fills our lives with zeal and teaches us some of the most fundamental life lessons there are to know.

At times, it feels like being impulsive is instinctual and in fact, it was an integral part of our evolutionary past. At the University of Minnesota, a team of researchers led by David Stephens, a professor of ecology, evolution and behavior, performed experiments that explored impulsive behavior and animals. They used jays as their specimen and observed what would happen when the birds found a clump of food and had to decide whether they wanted to wait for more food at the same clump or move onto a different clump. The birds consistently chose to act impulsively and not wait. Stephens accounts this to animals not looking too much into the future and acting in the present. He believes that this experiment "may apply to humans... because taking rewards without hesitation may have paid off for our foraging ancestors, as it does for blue jays and other foragers."

Even though being impulsive may have helped the earliest humans to survive, it is still ill-advised behavior and has often been directly linked to addiction and mental illness. With that said, I still firmly believe that a sprinkle of impulsive actions and sporadic plans are essential to taking advantage of all the opportunities that are out in the world.

After all, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.