Accruing Life Experience Interest

When I went to football games as an undergrad, the area outside the stadium was littered with credit card booths. Representatives offered a free Florida Gators tee-shirt to anyone who signed up for a new Visa or MasterCard.

I didn't like the Florida Gators then, and I still don't like credit cards. I hate the idea of spending money I don't have yet.

And that's just if you pay your bills on time. Those companies were targeting students who they knew would only pay the minimum each month, accruing interest with each bill. Thus, what could have been a simple purchase ends up costing several times the original price.

Why would anyone pay so much? That's easy: to avoid the initial pain of shelling out the money (or earning it to begin with). Nothing is as painful when it's done little by little. If there will be pain in realizing that you spent far more than you originally intended, that's in the future. It's not now.

It's the same as peeling off a band-aid millimeter by millimeter or wading into a freezing pool one toe at a time.

Or talking to women.

Yeah, I was going somewhere with this.

One of my biggest goals lately has been to talk to as many pretty girls as I can. I want to get more dates, yes, but I also want to become a more social creature.

The best way to accomplish this is to just go out and do it. Talk to as many girls as I can in a given day, then do it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.

If that's too hard, I can at least go out and talk to one girl each day. New York is full of them. It can be done.

But I don't. I don't want the stress. I don't want to face my fears. I know the rewards will be amazing, but I am paralyzed right now.

Right now, I approach one girl every few days, if that. It's not structured. I do it in the most comfortable situations possible.

I am avoiding the initial payment of a few days, weeks, or months of stress and facing my fears. I am paying a little bit at a time, and accruing the interest I hate so much.

When I look back, that interest will reveal itself as years of sustained loneliness and knowing that I let my fears keep me from living up to my potential.

That is so much more painful than the initial expenditure of putting myself in uncomfortable social situations. But since it's in the future, I continue to pay a little bit at a time and rack up a horrible debt.

If you are also stuck in this mindset, I don't have any words of motivation to break you out. If I did, I'd use them myself.

Sometimes, though, just seeing the terms laid out is enough to wake people up and get them to change their approach. If that is all it takes for you to break out of the mindset of accruing life experience interest, of putting off that initial payment, then I hope these words help.

And if you have any words of motivation that might help me break out of my own pattern, I'd certainly appreciate them.