You ever been stuck? You ever felt like your day was holding you
hostage? Like you were handcuffed by your fear,
your circumstances. You forgot to laugh.
You lost your best self somewhere along the way.
That kind of stuck can happen to anyone. And it happened to me.
But from the outside everything looked pretty good.
At 53 I was an eight time Emmy award winning investigative reporter,
a mother, a wife. I'd survived a lot.
I survived breast cancer, kidney cancer. Having my entire large intestine removed for
ulcerative colitis. Who knew you could survive without all those
body parts. I should have been doing the happy dance every
day. Just to be alive.
I'm ashamed to admit I wasn't. In 2009 things had changed.
The economy tanked, my job changed,
technology changed, but I didn't want to change.
I dug my heels in and I felt angry and isolated.
The low point came when my daughter came home for the holidays
and she looked at me and she said: “Mom what the heck is wrong with you?”
“You gotta fix this”. I said : “leave me alone”.
She said: “No, you're a survivor, I know what you need to do”
“You need to do something new every day and blog about it”.
She bugged me and bugged me. I said: “listen, who could do that, that's
crazy, I am working full time
and besides I'm not even sure I knew what a blog was at that point”.
She's the one though who said: “listen, just make a simple list,
a simple list of simple things you've never done”.
And that's how year first, and this list was born.
I highly recommend making a list because that
turns out to be a powerful first step. A reminder of all the things we've yet to
do. And as I did one new thing after another
I felt lighter and happier and I wanted to know why.
I started doing some research. Here are the Cliff Notes.
There's a neuroscientist by the name of David Eagleman
who's done extensive research on how the brain perceives time.
It turns out when you do the new the brain has to wake up.
It has to process that new information in a new way.
And so it can feel like time is slowing down. It becomes memorable.
Conversely as we get older and we start doing the same things over and
over again. The brain doesn't have to pay attention
it goes into autopilot. That may be why sometimes you don't remember
what you did yesterday, unless you do the new.
And there's more, research shows when you do the new
the feel good chemical dopamine is released in the brain.
And even if you just see a new image there's a mid region of the brain that lights
up. So let's review.
Do the new, time slows down for a memorable experience
you get a hit of dopamine and your brain lights up
party in the brain. But maybe you're thinking I don't have time
for this. I'm not that adventurous.
I've got responsibilities. Do the new doesn't mean do the exotic.
A lot of the things I did just took a few minutes.
I bought my first lottery ticket, I planted my first herb garden,
I ate a scorpion. But I found even the simplest things gave
a presence to my day. And I know anyone can do this
and I think the belief that we all share is that we shouldn't cheat ourselves of what
life can be an adventure.
We find out who we really are, and the possibilities are endless.
You get to choose, you can choose
to listen to your no voice and continue down the road to stuck
or you can say “yes” you can slow down time and light up your brain
and experience the euphoria of new things.