Would you be Spontaneous in hugging, holding hands, kissing, or saying “I love you” or shrug off such PDA because you are afraid of being labeled as “Impulsive”?
In the dictionary, Spontaneous is defined as: “coming or resulting from a natural impulse or tendency; without effort or premeditation; natural and unconstrained; unplanned”, and
Impulsive is defined as: “actuated or swayed by emotional or involuntary impulses”
Although both words indicate “in-the-moment” actions, I think there is a positive connotation to being Spontaneous and a somewhat convoluted tinge to being Impulsive. If you plan a fun trip or go to a movie without much planning, you will call it a spontaneous action. However, if you are enraged at someone’s hurtful words/actions, you would be acting impulsively. Everything changes how we perceive these actions. Your significant other might love your Spontaneous gesture or frown considering it as Impulsive behavior, based on their state of mind at that time. it changes time-to-time.
Past experiences dictate how we behave in certain ways. When you have kids with a little age gap, often the older one is expected to act mature before they are ready. The older ones are expected to share toys or give a bigger portion of the treat to the younger ones. Your first reaction was to hit your younger sibling rather than to express your need for attention to be treated as a kid! You got labeled as Impulsive. How fair is that?
When you expressed your tender emotions to your first love and they made fun of you/humiliated you in front of others, just because they did not know how to respect love, wouldn’t you be afraid of expressing your love even when the other person is waiting for you to make that first move? If your love was reciprocated, then you were being Spontaneous or otherwise Impulsive.
With such experiences, we learn to sense the situations ahead of time. We tend to protect ourselves by walking away from getting hurt. Even after letting your parents know that you do not enjoy STEM and would rather be an artist/mountaineer/nomad than suffocate on the corporate ladder, you don’t get a choice of choosing your impulse. Our parents hope for a secure future for us. They tend to curb our impulses and push us into the conventional molds that have worked for generations to the best of their knowledge and purest intentions! Does that work for a long time? Is the course correction needed at some point? Absolutely!
We should ponder that Spontaneous or Impulsive are just adjectives, two sides of the same coin. Such labels should not deter us from taking chances, acting on a whim, or feeding our inner child. Next time, when you meet the right person (even) at the wrong time, hug them/kiss them, and express yourself, who knows that life might be introducing you to your soulmate albeit unexpectedly.
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