Bouncy balls. Definitely more bouncy balls. Oh, and more world peace.

So besides those two obvious answers, here are my other wishes for the world:

• I wish the world had more risk takers.

• I wish the world had more intentionality.

• I wish the world had more interconnectedness in the present.

Risk takers

Recently, I was reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. One of the minor themes of the book really got to me: Life is a series of bets. If you only play the game when you have a 99% chance of winning a small reward, you are missing out on tons of opportunities to win a major reward at 1%.

All this comes down to: I am an incredibly risk-averse individual. I was taught to take the sure bet every time. The older I get, the less I think this is the right approach. Taking off the guard rails by taking big bets allows for the experience of high highs and low lows. I am not arguing that you should go to your local supermarket right now and invest all your money in scratch-offs. Although if you do, my money is on those cards with fun punny names like "Snow me the money." With a good name like that, you win even if you lose.

Anyhow, what I am saying is that you should consider taking risks and calculated risks more often. The more risks you take, the greater number of opportunities you have to win (and lose). You don't get to be an outlier if you only ever take small bets.

Intentionality

Intentionality is stressful. Intentionality puts a lot of pressure on people. Intentionality kind of sucks, right? I think that intentionality in the way that millennials have been taught intentionality kind of does suck, yes. I will give you that.

But for me, intentionality doesn't mean putting extreme pressure on yourself to achieve something no other 24 year old has ever achieved before. What it means to me is starting to create a life you want to be living. You don't have to have your whole life's theme figured out. Heck, you don't even have to know what you're having for lunch today.

Intentionality to me means consciously living in the dailies, the monthlies, and the lifetimes. Take the dailes for example: day-to-day intentionality looks like knowing how to carve time out for the things I enjoy. Something as simple as waking up early to write this blog post, going to the gym after work, or making myself some home made cold brew are efforts I take to ensure I am living a well-lived life.

On the monthly level, this looks very different. I establish routines to look over the past month of journal entries, to understand how I wanted to grow that month and if I met my goals. This is where reflection is key. I set out new goals depending on what went well and what didn't go so well. Here is where I get the ideas on what I should be intentional about in the dailies.

Lastly, the lifetimes: this one is tricky. The Defining Decade by Meg Jay says that the 20's are where you set your life into course. Whenever I think about, my early onset quarter life crisis takes over. Choice paralysis often creeps into scope here as people are too scared to choose a path. But it's important to remember that not choosing is also a choice. And while I do think a lot of important decisions are made in your 20's, I think that you will mess up more often than not, and that's okay. We are all here experimenting, learning what we like and what we don't like. We are learning what makes us tick.

I applaud everyone who sets their life into a direction for them and not for someone or something else. That's the first step, start living for you.

Interconnectedness in the present

I aspire to live everyday with the confidence and wonder of a child. Some of my favorite moments in life are those moments where you interact with a stranger in a seemingly unprofound way. Like when you're at the ice cream shop and you ask the person ahead of you what their favorite flavor is, or when you come across someone wearing the same shoes as you and you say something lame like "nice shoes." It doesn't have to be witty, it doesn't have to be funny, sometimes it's just nice to have those little moments that remind me that we are all connected and living life at the same time.

For me, more often than not, sharing those moments with people around me is at direct odds with confidence. I am working on reminding myself that a person's opinion of me does not shape my self worth. If they think I am weird, that's okay. Vulnerability looks different on other people than it does on yourself. When you see someone step outside of their comfort zone, you think bravery. When you see it on yourself, your doubts set in. I'm starting to rewire my response to how vulnerability looks on me as bravery. It's going to be a long process.

So what now?

Well what a nifty little exercise, am I right? This is now a point where I start to synthesize and dream up new ideas to bring these above wishes for the world actually into the world. How might I encourage risk taking or intentionality or interconnectedness? Well that is the million dollar question. Stay tuned to what I come up with.

What do you think the world should have more of? I'd love to hear your thoughts.