It’s fascinating to learn by experience what events trigger an unusual excitement in me that lasts more than few minutes. Three types of events that excite me in particular
- A strong run, no surprise. A run that probably ends differently than I started. It happens often especially when the run seems daunting. I have started with my last training cycle coach again and his first workout for me was speed. I don’t like speed because it’s painful. So I went out a bit anxious, scared. I didn’t feel free well during the first 2 miles warm up. It was raining. It was not pleasant. Then I had to do 6 sets of 400 meters speed with 400 meters jog. Let me tell you, after the first set, I felt I’ve had a dose of Red Bull. Every cell in my mind was light up out of excitement. That excitement, endorphin feeling lasted me for the rest of the day. Love it!!!
- Learning new topics. I had 2 meetings of 2 hours each to go through a study that I’m commissioning. Tax gap if you are interested. Such a boring topic right? Well… my consultant is super smart, humbled, and cool guy that really entertained me, got me interested in all the assumptions and caveats. He turned the boring topic into a super exciting learning experience for me. I left the meeting feeling very accomplished and excited to be exposed to new topics. Similarly, I got interested about alternative crops for peatland. I would never guessed these would interest me. But somehow new topics clicked parts of my brain that was dormant. Learning excites me!!!
- Chatting with someone I like. I am happy to say that I found one guy in my office that I really like to hang out with as he’s so funny and smart. Every time we chat, I feel good afterwards for hours.
What activities excite you in a surprising manner lately?
Our New Journey 
I love how in this post and in the post about delights you focus on things that lift you up, rather than weigh you down. Such a good practice to remind oneself of those things and keep trying to inject them into life.
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Your experience with the person who taught you about tax gaps reminds me of the professor I had for linear algebra in college. He was so excited about what he was teaching and his enthusiasm so contagious. That ended up being one of my favorite classes I took in my program (I was a math major). I like learning new things, too, especially when the teacher is enthusiastic and finds a way to make it interesting.
I have been really enjoying my walks outside this winter. Admittedly, I kind of hated my walk yesterday when the feels like temp was -10F. But besides that, the walks are really invigorating. I usually take them after lunch and it gives me a burst of energy. Plus I listen to podcasts during the walks which are so enjoyable for me!
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