About Being Impulsive

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A woman cliff jumping

Much is made, and often critically, of the impetuous nature of youth. The older and wiser among us frequently admonish their younger charges to replace impulsivity with prudence. But, as a conversation with some older friends demonstrated, it’s more nuanced than it seems.

"I was pretty naive back then," I told my buddies, shaking my head in disbelief at the mindset of the old me.

"Back then" was in my early twenties. The example I dredged up to illustrate my foolishness was the time I drove a rattle trap VW microbus across the Mojave Desert in midday summer heat. Everyone laughed knowingly as I recounted this misadventure; the engine overheating, the sizzling blacktop burning through the bottom of my shoes, driving in my underwear in a desperate effort to cool off.

"A little less luck and I could have died out there. I can't believe I was that foolish," I concluded.

"Back then you felt invincible," my friend, Mike, added. "All of us did a lot of crazy things because we felt invincible."

Risky and Ill-Conceived

I certainly had. My college years and well into my twenties were pock-marked with risky, ill-conceived odysseys and schemes that frequently ended in comic absurdity or near disaster. Anyone who tried to reason with me about bad odds or potential calamity got short shrift from my psyche.

Stereotypically, many young people lay claim to adulthood through bravado, impulsive misadventures, and feats of daring or foolhardiness. "Laughing in the face of death," as we say. Sometimes, death or disaster get the last laugh.

"Feeling invincible can be life-threatening," Jack, another friend, surmised. "A lot of bad life decisions, serious accidents and addictions are caused by that indomitable warrior illusion."

"Sure, plenty of hell gets paid by young people who embrace that myth," Todd chimed in, "but feeling invincible can be a good thing too."

"How so?" I challenged.

"When we lose the myth about our invincibility, many of us stop taking chances. Life gets pretty ho-hum when you stop taking chances," he replied.

Writing One’s Life Story

Indeed. Daily living is the process of writing one's life story, and there are misadventures from my youthful days that I'm glad are transcribed in my book of existence. If I had spent those years being soberly rational, over-emphasizing the risks, and contemplating my mortality, I doubt my life story would be of much interest to myself or others. A story without adventure, danger, passion, zaniness, and the unexpected is hardly worth telling.

The fondest memory of my father's youth was his impetuous, ill-advised cross-country trek to Florida in a Model T Ford on mud-choked rut roads. This was in the late 1920s.

"I couldn't tell you how many times we got stuck, ran out of gas, or had to fix a flat," he recalled. 

Had my father listened to the voices of reason from his parents, or to his own fears, a major chapter in his life would never have been written. An enthralling story later to be told would have been lost.

Granted, this devil-may-care attitude certainly wracks up some casualties and tragedies. Like most things, risk-taking occurs on a continuum and those who embrace the extremes or just make a really bad decision sometimes pay a high price, including the ultimate one. Clearly, there are some risks not worth taking irrespective of one’s appetite for adventure.

And, as we all understand, even when people are very careful, bad things happen.

For better or worse, many of us live our youth as if we are Achilles, rash, foolishly brave, impetuous, and oblivious to our vulnerable heel. And while it is true that being prudent and rational can sometimes save your hide, too much of it can also turn your life story into milquetoast.

Sometimes to fully live, you have to pretend you can never die.

For more, visit philipchard.com.