The Power of Spontaneity

I'm so lacking in a healthy dose of spontaneity these days. It's the built-in routines embedded by work and responsibilities along with the minutia of daily requirements that stand in the way of randomness.

Ever find that as you get older, the regularity of your existence increases with such stealth that you don't realize how "schedulized" things are... until pretty soon, you know exactly what's coming every 7 am through 10 pm? The only variable becomes the dreams your sleep will conjure. And more often than not, they're nothing you remember because you're too damn tired.

With this, I cannot tell you how totally refreshing it was to take off from the professional development conference in Boca Raton on Monday with a group of girls and make the random, sudden decision to drive to Miami and have a little South Beach adventure. With four of us in the car, we each had a slightly different reaction to the trip's interesting side steps, which introduced humor, candid conversation and camaraderie. Sound cheesy? It totally wasn't.

Sure, we saw the usual assortment of freaks, but nothing really surprising. We didn't do anything your grandmother wouldn't do, but the unplanned journey was funny, only slightly dangerous at times and off the original map for the day. Holy Pete, I appreciated that.

Now before the powers of "ask and thou shall receive" come down to provide a set of tragically unexpected events, let me confirm that I appreciate GOOD spontaneity. Seriously. I'm not asking for anything big. Just a reminder every once in a while that I'm not a victim of routine.