Spontaneity, noun: the condition of being spontaneous; spontaneous behavior or action.

Whenever asked what I think my biggest weakness as a professional is (which, yes I have been asked because of interviews), I’ve always responded that I don’t think I’m necessarily a risk taker and that if I could work to improve that I think it would have the biggest impact in my productivity and team cooperation (wow that sounded a lot more professional than I even thought I had the capability of being). And while, yes to a degree I think this is true, hence why I respond with this, I don’t know that it’s as true as I’ve convinced myself it is.

Some of my favorite memories I have so far this year in college were the impulsive decisions I’ve decided to make. Whether that be going out last minute, or dropping everything to drive someone somewhere, or even something as small as deciding against class to go hang out with someone else instead. Those are the moments I think have shaped me the most and created the best times for me, and as a result, I am now more prone to let them happen.

While yes, some of my decisions are not always the brightest and lead to less than ideal circumstances, making mistakes is just a part of life. I mean, I try and learn from them so I’m not as dumb the next time around, but the fear of making a mistake is no longer enough to keep me from making spontaneous decisions.

I mean there is definitely a trend though to my making of impulse decisions. The typical pattern is: come up with an idea, say no to it, decide to do it anyways, go to bed immediately afterwards. Most of the time I’ll make impulse decisions in the middle of the night because then I can go to bed and not worry about them anymore, but even if it’s the middle of the day I’m likely to go to sleep to avoid direct consequences for an hour or so (OK, that makes it sound like they all end poorly, which is not always the case).

I guess what I’m trying to get at is the idea that I am, in fact, growing as a person; I know, I’m surprised too. I’m opening myself up more and more to opportunity, and also failure because I know at the end of the day I could learn a lot from it. While I still am incredibly calculated a lot of the time, I’m definitely more prone to try new things. Maybe it’s a result of the college environment, maybe it’s a result of the people I’m around, or maybe there isn’t a reason behind it at all. But regardless it’s happening, and I don’t regret it happening at all. While yes, there are going to be times that this leads me to fall down, I know that when I do stand back up I’ll be stronger and probably smarter than before. And that’s definitely something I can get behind.