| For today's Sunday with Sisson, I'm thinking about the difference between consuming experiences and creating experiences. As consumers today move away from buying objects, knick-knacks, doo-dads, and other physical, tangible things in favor of spending their money on travel, trips, dinners, and other experiences a new dichotomy arises. Are you consuming experiences? Or are you creating experiences? Some people passively consume what lies before them. They tread the same paths others have tread. They visit the same sites, walk along the same trails, take the same picture in the same spot making the same pose. They spend hours researching travel blogs and review sites to craft and curate the "optimal" travel experience. They leave nothing up to chance. They don't want to miss out on anything. They're thinking in terms of what they won't be able to do, not what they get to do. Now, consumption like this isn't "bad." Many well-worn travel destinations and sights are well-worn for a reason: they're beautiful, stunning, have historical significance, and are lots of fun. Tours can give you access to information and insight you wouldn't find on your own. The Louvre is the Louvre for a reason. I consume plenty of experiences. But I firmly believe that you should be creating experiences at least as often as you're consuming them. How do you "create" an experience? You open yourself to opportunity. Submit to serendipity. You walk, you wander, you flaneur. It's not a matter of finding some exotic location. You can create experiences in your backyard. The common denominator of the creation of powerful experiences is YOU. An animal goes where its instincts and compulsions pull it. A human goes where he or she wants and decides what he or she does. A human practices free will—faced with an urge or instinct, the human can go the other way. Many philosophers will say free will is just an illusion (which I don't really believe), but even so, it feels like free will and so it is. It "seems as if" we can decide to do something totally different, novel, new, and meaningful every single of our lives. How do you tell if you're creating or consuming an experience? Ask yourself: is this something anyone can do, and has done, in the same place? That's how you know. What about you, folks? Do you create experiences, or do you just consume? Let me know in the comment section of New and Noteworthy. | 