3- Try things you don’t like.

3. Try things you don’t like.

William Falk, the editor of The Week always has a mini-essay on page five. He’s become one of my favorite writers. Last week, he wrote about the research explaining why older people don’t try new things as much as younger people do. It made me realize that the last few big changes I made in my routine came from trying something that was originally repugnant to me.
For example, I was giving a speech at the Natural Foods Expo and this guy came up to me afterward. He said he loved my blog and he brought a sample of his product for me to have. Foosh. That’s the name of the product.
I said, “Oh, I’ll check out your booth on the floor.” And he said, “I don’t have a booth, because this isn’t really a natural product, it’s got other stuff in it.” I was totally grossed out, but I said thank you, and put it in my bag, because that’s what you do to show good social skills.

Two months later, when I was cleaning out that same bag, I found the sample again. I was hungry, and tired, and I thought, why not? So I tried one. They’re caffeine supplements. They’re caffeine pills, but they have other stuff in them (I’m scared to look). I’ve gotten addicted to them, I’ve ordered Foosh boxes from Amazon like I’m Costco, stocking up.
And it made me think, why do people drink coffee? It’s got a lot of calories (because I don’t drink it black) and it just makes me want sugar, and the sugar makes me want more sugar, and if I have a sugary mint instead, it makes everything after it taste yucky. So it’s much better to have caffeine in a mint than coffee with sugar. Also, the last time I complained about having to put sugar in my coffee, someone told me to buy Illy coffee. It has really snappy packaging, but it’s not as good as Illy coffee with sugar.