Something I’ve been thinking about recently is experiencing things for the first time. I’ve been curious about whether or not being more aware of a first time experience will help you be more present and enjoy the moment more.
This is interesting to me because you can only experience something for the first time once. Then after that first time, every time after that is never the same. You may start to grow accustomed to it, it may become just another habit or part of your routine, and you’ll end up not even thinking twice about it after enough times.
I don’t know, that’s kinda sad to me. There are a lot of experiences in this world that I don’t want to become mundane and routine. I want to feel the same or very similar emotions as to what I felt the first time. I feel like when we’ve done something many times, we lose appreciation for it and we don’t take the time to enjoy or be grateful for it.
What if when we did things, we fully immersed ourselves in them as though it was the first time? Imagine eating your very first spoonful of ice cream. Imagine hearing your favorite song for the first time and knowing it was going to be your favorite. You can think about any number of things in your life that have become routine and common for you.
There are two ways I want to try approaching this, one being to recognize when I’m about to experience something for the first time and the other being when I’m doing something I’ve done a bunch of times already.
When I’m handed an opportunity to do something I’ve never done, the most recent example being cryotherapy, I want to try my best to fully immerse myself in the activity. I want to enjoy every moment, engage with every emotion I feel, every sensation, and simply stay as present as I possibly can. After this, I won’t ever be able to experience this activity for the first time again, so I want to make it count.
With common life occurrences, I want to try my best to stay present as well. While it may not be my first time, I would like to do my best to treat it as such. I’d like to not do things solely out of habit but to instead do things with purpose and awareness. I feel like doing so will give me a greater sense of gratitude and enjoyment with even the most mundane events.
We get so used to things in our lives and we neglect to realize how lucky we are. Some form of presence and truly experiencing every single moment can do a lot of good and I think we should all try our best to experience everything “for the first time” more often.
September 8, 2021
