Not long ago, I heard something really provocative. Remember, I’m a psychology guy, and I’m a geek. What I heard was that new information, new people, new experiences are to the human being like sunlight to a plant; no sunlight, no photosynthesis.

What that means for us is no new experiences, no new information, no new people. We don’t grow. We certainly can’t thrive.

Then what it proposed was that it becomes increasingly true as we get older, With each passing year, each passing decade, it will inevitably become more difficult to find some new life, some new experience, some new person, some new information. It would also become harder over time to incorporate or allow that information in, just because of all that history we’ve had.

It proposed that we make it a point to seek out, lean into, push forward into new experiences of every imaginable kind, because it would transform us, slowly but surely, in the same way that sunlight causes the transformation in a plant.

I remember realizing as soon as I heard it how true it was. I do see it’s harder to lean into things now. It’s harder to let in a new idea, a new perspective. Sometimes new people are just not my cup of tea. But the argument is, you probably need to do it anyway.

The first time I got an inkling of this, and this is the funny part, I was having some real issues with certain commentators in the world and my longtime mentor, Master Samwise, as he is affectionately known, said “Ron, what you need to do is to seek out the people who agitate you the most. That’s what you need to lean into.”

I thought it was a crazy idea, but you know what, it works.

Let’s call this your agitation practice. Go find something that agitates you, which means it’s new information or something. See what you can do to engage it. See what you can do to lean into it and maybe even to welcome it.

Because if you want to grow like plants grow, you’re going to need some photosynthesis, and that comes in terms of things that are new.

Could be a life changer. Could really agitate you. Maybe that’s a good reason to do it.