I want to spend more of my money on experiences.

Experiences are what you talk about when you sit around the fireplace when you get old and slow – Not all the cool designer furniture you’ve bought. Not that my life so far have been filled with designer furniture. Nor have it been all that crowded with incredible experiences (that could be bought for money at least).

One of the coolest presents I ever had was when a couple of my good friends gave me a ticket to a Six Flags park in the Netherlands. The ticket itself was worth practically nothing. The real present was the experience, the road trip and the excitement the ticket implied. My friends aren’t stupid. Of course they insisted on coming along, and of course I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In the end, their present ended up eating away an action jam-packed, overly expensive weekend of my life, while we crazed away on our ride-filled, Denmark/Netherlands 2 X 10 hours guy-thing road trip.

Could I have bought an I-Pod for the amount I spend on that trip?
- Yes. Probably twice…

Would an I-Pod have given me more pleasure?
- No. Definitely not.

Will the guys and me be sitting around the fireplace and talk about the cool I-Pods we bought back in ‘04?
- No. Definitely not.

Experiences last.

Only just recently – on a cosmic scale – I have realised that life is made up from choices. Even if you go through life without making any conscious choices (as I did for years) you still make potentially important choices by not making them…

I remember an episode of minor physical dimensions but with large thought provoking potential from a summer afternoon years back. One of my friends and I had agreed to meet and hang out. He arrived walking, laid back, enjoying the sunshine, relaxed with a pretty large greenish object in his hand.

As he approaced me, the greenish object in my friend’s hand turned out to be an extremely atrificial looking ice cream. I stared at it in shere disbelief and awe. I had never seen anything like it.

I asked my friend how it tasted? Without any hesitation at all he replied that

“It tastes like shit!”
“How come you buy an ice cream that tastes like shit??!” I asked like an ignorant fool
“I allways buy a different ice cream… Sometimes they just taste bad”

To me that sounded like something similar to stupidity – why buy an ice cream that you had very little chance of actually liking? Why not go straight for the ice cream that you know you like? If you really feel like eating an ice cream, then why risk having it spoiled by something that tastes like shit?

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

At that point of my life I wasn’t really used to making any conscious choices I think. I wasn’t really fit for choices. Choices felt uncomfortable and unnecessary. It felt like choices and options was a bad thing, and an excuse to always go for what felt safe and well-known.

What I really needed was a trip to Choice Bootcamp. I really needed to practice making conscious choices – even if it was on an ice cream micro scale.

To me the art of making conscious choices has turned out to be something I have to practice like a serious, difficult sport. It’s not at all like learning how to ride a bicycle to me. I easily forget to make conscious choices, unless I practice every day – unless I practice every time I get the urge to buy an ice cream.

Sometimes they taste bad – I grant you that much. But other times you stumble on an experience of taste and wonder that you only would have encountered by making a conscious choice that forced yourself away from the track of going for the things you know and feel safe about.

By not choosing you simply stick to what feels safe. What feels safe is always what you feel familiar with. By not choosing you actually choose to seperate yourself from a lot of potentially great tasting ice creams.