Spontaneous (adj)- performed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus
In other words, unplanned.
Like most teenagers and college kids, you make plans to see your friends, go do fun things, dates, etc. And then some way or another, it just doesn’t end up happening. There’s a saying that the best-made plans can go wrong. I can’t even tell you the amount of times things that I’ve planned with my friends didn’t end up happening, and it sucks. But, you know what you need to do more of? Spontaneous adventures. Over the past year, I’ve found that unplanned or planned-in-five-minutes, "we’ll worry about the rest later" kind of plans have turned out to be the most memorable times spent.
Last February, for example, I had just started my Disney College Program and my roommate said she wanted to go to the beach while a bunch of us and some friends were at late-night Applebee's. We're talking well after midnight, here. Two hours later, we were pulling into the outskirts of Clearwater Beach, Florida. We checked into a random hotel, slept for maybe four hours, and then went on the beach for the day. We explored the town, had some ice cream and then drove home that night. It was absolutely crazy that we drove to the beach at 3:30 in the morning. We had bolted from Applebee's after paying our bill and then ran back to our apartments and started throwing clothes, toothbrushes and bathing suits in bags. It was complete chaos, but those memories are something I will cherish forever.
This past weekend, I was Snapchatting one of my best friends who I haven't seen since January since we’ve all been so busy. (She was on the early morning beach trip!) She mentioned that she had a rare day off and I told her to come visit me at school (she had been wanting to since I started here), and I ended up calling her. Five minutes after that, she texted me she was on her way to the train station, and we had more friends on the way to make the night epic. We spent the night bar-hopping, catching up, and just having a blast. We packed all that into just 15 short hours, but I couldn’t have asked for anything better.
My point is, summer is coming in just a few short weeks. Make the most out of the long days. Do something that you’ll never forget. Want to go visit your friend who lives in another state? Do it. Go watch the sunset/sunrise, stay at the beach for an extra day, go on random trips to places. You don’t want to be kicking yourself later for all the missed opportunities, or saying “I wish I’d done that."
Of course, it’s not going to be the perfect outing from start to finish, but if you didn’t have anything planned before, what’s the difference? Live in the moment, do something that you can tell a great story about and have the pictures to look back on, or a little memento to keep. Make your life memorable.
