Experiences for the Sake of Experiences

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In the throes of developing a startup business (almost hitting the year mark!), I often find myself relying more and more on my past experiences and intuitions to pull myself and the business through tricky situations and new obstacles. This might seem obvious at first, but I want to spend a moment and talk more about the particular experiences that I felt were highly transferrable, contributed to the level of ‘success’ I am working for now, and why it is so vital to actively seek out these types of life-changing moments.

These are the things you choose to do, no matter how out of the way or how small it may seem it at the time, that carry you/us through the unexpected curveballs and even carve out unique opportunities for us in the future that others may never recognize. Attempting a business, exploring the world, taking on a long-form pastime/hobby, or thrusting oneself into scenarios that uncomfortable and unfamiliar - I believe that these and more are the types of moves that allow drastic developments to occur in one’s life.

I have been always against conformity and content, almost to a fault and often to the confusion of family and friends. I’m allergic to any status quo and if I find myself in a group of people where everyone nods and smile and exclaims unanimous satisfaction, my first impulse is critique and movement. I believe that the automation of life is death and I would not be caught dead with the same lifestyle year after year, the same places visited (people having a repeated ‘favorite’ vacation or travel destination has always seemed strange to me in a world so expansive), or the same operations in a business even month after month. I don’t think this is a question of wealth or privilege, but more of a mindset and willingness to broaden horizons with earnest work/effort.

A perfect example and one of my life cornerstones is my time in Berlin with 3 old university friends. Most of the adventure is laid out on the @hitheryon account and essentially my friends and I decided to pack our bags after graduation for the German capital. We established a design studio and did anything and everything to be able to claw through our living expenses and attempt to carve out a creative niche in the world. It was all at once terrifying, fulfilling, drowning in anxiety, and perpetually optimistic/pessimistic at the same time. I think above any physical accomplishment, the experience proved to us that nothing is as scary as it seems and with a bit of grit and gumption, anything is achievable.

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Before we departed from the US and up until the point of returning back home, none of our family or friends could really comprehend why we done this. To everyone else, we had taken our expensive degrees and failed to leverage them for high urban salaries. We instead opted to cram 4 dudes into a tiny apartment on the edge of a city where we knew not one single soul and was always on the verge of bankruptcy. I’ll admit, we weren’t sure what we were doing completely as well.

But every year since that experience, our lives have developed exponentially after going to Berlin and back. We’ve done exhibitions in museums and galleries, 3/4 of us exploring graduate school and further disciplines, and most relevant to my current readers, paved the way for @voronoi and I to discover and make a home for ourselves and our work on Steemit. @hitheryon would not exist without Berlin. @sndbox or @creativecrypto would not exist if not for Berlin. I would have arguably never spent much time getting to learn about blockchain and all of its prospective offerings. I truly believe that these developments can all be traced to key short-term experiences and I chose to have early on.

In retrospect, I think this is really what people mean when they encourage you to “invest in yourself.” Berlin was a time to give ourselves a bit of space in the world and out of the mainstream current of post-graduation career life. We got to explore and acquire new skills, new experiences, new colleagues and partners, and a new trajectory in the world. Berlin cost us very little, both financially and in the big picture time-wise (less than 1 year for most of us). But it arguably provided more than our traditional education and other daily experiences in the US before that.

I’m not quite sure whether this post is meant to be a personal reflection or a transparent suggestion to anyone reading. I hoped the aim would emerge as I write this on a lazy Sunday. I guess it’s a bit of both.

Have you had these types of experiences? Are you preparing for one? Let me know in the comments below!