Experience It All

As time ticked down to the summer before my freshman year in high school I got this idea stuck in my head.

“I want to experience it all!” I would say.

That idea has never really left me even to this day. In fact I would say that one of the foundational tenets of my life is that Life Is About Collecting Experiences.

My desire to collect experiences has led me all over the earth and into some pretty surreal situations.

Some of these experiences include:

Watching the sunrise over Jerusalem
Exploring an ancient drainage system in Turkey
Searching a crawl-space in a Roman amphitheater
Backpacking Europe in my cowboy boots
Walking nearly 8 miles down the highway during a traffic standstill visiting with strangers
Traveling to NO for the re-opening of the Superdome
Sharing lunch with a homeless man in downtown Nashville
Helping hang curtains at big-time rock show (as people were arriving!)

While these are just a handful of the “biggie” experiences, I have collected my fair share of smaller ones. I have had my fill of odd jobs (working at a cheerleading competition), met a few minor celebrities (Henry Rollins and I had a nice conversation in a Houston hotel lobby), and stumbled in to places I didn’t belong (painted Notre Dame helmets).

Today I can add another experience to my list. Today I fixed a watch (sort of).

I, like most everyone, have stopped wearing a watch. Who needs a watch when there is a clock on our cell phones, right? However, there are often times when I have needed a watch but my cell phone was either stowed away or out of reach.

While organizing our closets, my wife uncovered a watch that she had given me while we were dating. It was the first Valentine’s Day gift she gave me 8 years ago this week.

I resolved, then and there, to wear a watch again or at least try to wear a watch again.

With the battery dead long ago, I strolled over to the jewelry counter at the local Wal-Mart. The lady behind the counter politely told me that she wouldn’t be able to change the battery because it was not a watch that Wal-Mart carried. Understandable, I thought. But what is my next option? Without hesitation, she offered me all the watch tools I would need to crack open gingerly remove the back of my watch.

After a few false starts and with plenty of encouragement from Rose, the lady behind the counter, I successfully removed the back. The battery was secured my a thin metal clasp that I gently unhooked with a small tool. The battery fell right out. I replaced the dead battery with a fresh one, re-secured the clasp, and gave the mechanism a good once over before replacing the back of the watch. I returned the tools to Rose and paid for the battery. As I type this my old/new watch is ticking along just perfectly. I feel very accomplished.

Sure, all I did was replace a battery but I had never done that before. It was a new experience for me. Now I know how to open up a watch. I was able to see how it moved and how things worked together. It was definitely a sight I had never seen before. Who knows, maybe I’ll buy an old watch and see what I can do with it. Anythings possible.

When you collect experiences everyday is a chance to learn something new, see something different, and to make the unfamiliar a part of your life.