Derek Sivers says: expand your self
As a follow-up to my recent post on mini-adventures, I wanted to share an idea that had resonance with mine.
In his article Monthly Self-Expansion Project, Derek Sivers suggests this:
Here’s an idea: Every month, pick something you hate or know nothing about, and get to know it well. Spend a few hours per week, for an entire month, just learning about that subject.
It is easy to be curious about things you are interested in, but to be curious about something "you hate"...that's next level.
Sivers later elaborates:
While you might lean towards things you’ve always wanted to learn about, I think it’s more interesting to ask yourself, “What do I have absolutely no interest in?” or “What sounds repulsive to me?”, then aim to understand one of those things. Start with a kind of music you hate, or a part of the world that sounds unappealing to you. That’s where the real self-expansion happens.
Whenever we learn about something, we learn to appreciate it. So it’s most rewarding if it’s something you previously had no appreciation for.
What would be on your list of things to learn about — things that you otherwise would shy away from? As Steven Pressfield writes in Do the Work:
Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North – meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.