blog,  Essay,  Life Lessons,  Mindset

A Deep Need for Excitement In All Of Us

Our lifestyles set us up for repetition, redundancy, disappointment. We fear risk and rejection and as a result we suffer from lack of excitement. Our need for excitement as real to our bodies and our health as  healthy food and water.   A lack of excitement will leave us run down, confused, lethargic and sick like a vitamin deficiency. So we will seek it out subconsciously and suffer emotional, even physical, consequences if we don’t have any or enough of it. So, when we do not know how to create healthy excitement in our lives, we settle for whatever we can get. We are hungry for food but we settle for junk.

What is Junk Excitement?

Junk excitement is alcohol, driving fast, cheating and getting away with it, flattery, porn, meaningless sex. It is cheap and easy and does not leave us fulfilled for long. In fact, after the adrenaline rush wears off, we have an even greater need for excitement again to lift us up, because there was nothing sustaining in the experience and we begin to use it as escape. It makes us crave more and get caught up in it like an addiction.

What is Nourishing Excitement?

Nourishing excitement is intellectual stimulation, reaching a new challenge, uncomfortable situations that make us grow, intense exercise, making love, creative expression, connecting with a new person, travel.  It happens when we get our of our comfort zones, take on a new task, open our minds to something new or push our bodies to a new level.

Some of us, have a bigger need for excitement and the adrenaline thrill than others, but we all need excitement in our lives.

Why Does It Matter?

The biggest danger in junk excitement is that they slowly put everything you care about at risk.  Drugs are not the only addictions and often people will put their need for that excitement over the stability of their family, the security of their job and the commitment of their relationships.  In short, they trade their dignity for a high. They trade their marriage for a fling. They trade their career for a gamble.

Of course no one sees it this way in the moment.  In the moment it’s an indulgence, a fluke. It’s impulsive and exciting!   It’s living with abandon, in the moment and not giving a fuck.  Sometimes it makes us feel young, sexy, appreciated. It fills a need for excitement plus another emotional need and that adds to the allure. Not only that but we have such a deep need for it that we are willing to rationalize it and make it right –for the moment. We “deserve” it, we “need” it.  But if it is momentary excitement, or out of nowhere, or cheap or easy, or distracting you from what truly matters (your spouse, your kids, your job, your health) chances are it’s junk excitement and not what we want at all. Even worse, it could unravel everything you really value.  And when you have nothing, that junk don’t go far!

No one thinks about the consequences when they are caught up in the exhilaration of the thrill; but when they are caught cheating, when they crash their car, when they suffer erectile dysfunction with their wife because they don’t have the thrill of the mistress or porn, the fantasy life they thought they had will prove to be smoke and mirrors– as fabricated and destructive as the false confidence borne from cocaine.

Make Conscious Choices to Create Nourishing Excitement

A lot of people will tell you to have self control and discipline.  They might shame you for having these needs and tell you to be more responsible.  They might tell you that your desires and needs are wrong.  The message we often get is to repress our needs, feel shame and guilt.  But that doesn’t make them go away, it makes them more crafty and seductive.  They will get out.

Excitement is essential to your life and well-being.  So be conscious in seeking it out before it sneaks up on you.  Only junk excitement will sneak up on you like a clever con-artist.  You have to create nourishing excitement on your own.

Take a chance on something real. Run a marathon.  Travel to a foreign country.  Volunteer with poverty stricken children.  Start a business.  Write a book. Try some kinky sex. Learn to surf. Run a Tough Mudder. Find out what your partner or lover has really been thinking about.  I mean really ask and really listen.  Find out what he or she dreams of and try to make it happen, together.  You won’t regret it. Find nourishing excitment, avoid the junk. It’ll make you sick.

It’s a Kitten Holiday.


  • Dave Mercer

    I’ve been guilty of chasing junk excitement, cheap relationships and shallow pursuits. I’m working on finding the patience to take the time necessary to find something real and lasting. Loneliness can sometimes make it difficult. I’ve dated a woman a couple of times who is, to my mind, very hard to read – the challenge is not giving up on the potential because I’m not getting the immediate gratification that eases my insecurity. There’s potential, but I need to find it.

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