noun. the condition of being spontaneous; spontaneous behaviour or action.
I miss being spontaneous.
The older I have become, the less spontaneous I have become. The more senior I have become, the less spontaneity I have in my life. The busier I have become, the less room for spontaneity has been left. This has been compounded by relocating and a lot of my friends living back in London. It is hard to be spontaneous when your friends are a few hours away as everything needs planning in advance!
During my 20s and early 30s there was lots of spontaneous fun and adventure. We would do things on a whim as we had less responsibilities. We took ourselves and our lives a lot less seriously. We had random adventures, random nights out, random fun. I was much more carefree than I am in my 40s.
I am a planner. Those who know me, know that I schedule and diarise everything in advance. Everything is in the calendar and colour coded. I have lots of different groups of friends, who live all over the place and we block out weekends months in advance to ensure we get to see each other.
Can spontaneity be planned in advance?
I think it is why I enjoy travelling so much. When I go away I plan when I will leave and when I will return but I leave the rest of it up to the adventure. I enjoy being free spirited and taking each day as it comes. We decide on the day or the night before, what we will do.
This will be the first summer I am not going away to do some travelling or a volunteer trip overseas, it is also the first summer where I do not get a school summer holiday. My relationship with time, energy, holidays is changing. I am hoping I can plan some spontaneity back into my life! When I say plan, I mean create some time and some space, then see what manifests itself as an opportunity.
Spontaneity is about embracing where you are, who you are with and what you can do in the moment.
“Spontaneity is being present in the present”.Wei Wu Wei
Spontaneity is about discovering the unknown and doing the unfamiliar.
“Spontaneity is the best kind of adventure”.Unknown
Spontaneity is about grasping opportunities and enjoying a sense of freedom.
“Spontaneity is an infinite number of rehearsed opportunities”.Peter F. Drucker
Spontaneity is about creating the conditions including being in the right headspace.
“Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art”.Oscar Wilde
Spontaneity is about living in the moment and filling our lives with unbridled joy.
“If a person lives a spontaneous life,then (s)he realises that life has only one meaning – life itself”.Erich Fromm
So as people break up, put down their planners, pack away their laptops and begin to come out of hibernation, I hope that we can all find some opportunities this summer to embrace the spontaneous, have some fun and some random adventure. Let’s remember to enjoy the being as well as the doing in our lives!
I, for one, am going to try harder to recapture being spontaneous and to rediscover that carefree side of my personality to bring a bit of lightness back into my life.
Ethical_Leader 
You are absolutely right, Hannah. Spontaneity gets squeezed by necessity. And as we get older or have more demands on us. In having a very busy schedule and managing, or being managed, by the schedules of significant others (school,husband, four children, parents and significant friends), it becomes less easy. But.by making space to allow spontaneity is essential to maintain well-being. Being a clock & timetable driven person, when I go away I take off my watch and often have no clue as to the time or the day. It is liberating! So,yes to more spontaneity this summer. Thank you for the nudge to think about this.
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