Make Extravagant Requests!

We spend a lot of time asking ourselves and those around us to be reasonable. We seek compromise, look for rational solutions, advise moderation in all things. We restrict our diets for health reasons, our expenditures for budgetary reasons, and our exuberance for society's sake.

We avoid asking for help, we strive to be unselfish, and we allow others to plan our birthday celebrations.

All this and more in the name of reasonableness.

Why?

What would happen if, once each day, you were to make an extravagant request, either of yourself or of someone else?

The American Heritage Dictionary uses the words lavish and abundant in its definition of "extravagant." It also notes the archaic meaning of "straying beyond limits or bounds." These are the aspects of extravagance that I'm suggesting you explore. I am certainly not recommending anything that would have a long-term negative effect on your finances, relationships, or health!

In fact, one of the beauties of extravagant requests is that they're quite specifically not new habits. Instead, they're one-time playful explorations that you'll enjoy as much for the novelty as for the extravagance.

So what might an extravagant request look like? Well, that's actually a very personal question! What feels extravagant to one person might be the height of reasonableness to someone else.

I threw four unread magazines into the recycling bin last week, and that felt tremendously extravagant to me. Never mind that they were business publications several months out of date; there could be something really interesting in there! How could I throw them out without even scanning through the table of contents? It took a great deal of self-control on my part to actually put them, unopened, in the bin, and it took additional self-control all week not to fish them back out again.

That's one key to successful extravagant requests: you can't back up and change your mind. A big point in making these requests, whether of yourself or someone else, is that they're a step outside your comfort zone.

Another key is to be sure that you're requesting something that will make life more fun, more enjoyable, more extravagant for you. Throwing out those magazines meant that I wasn't cluttering my time reading out-of-date material. Instead, I now have time to read a book I've been wanting to get to for a while.

Completing your to-do list does not qualify as an extravagant request. However, doing a next-week task today could qualify if next week's schedule looks jam-packed and overwhelming, because doing that task today gives you greater spaciousness and less overwhelm next week.

Making extravagant requests of someone else allows you to expand your concept of what's acceptable to ask. Since most of us define that as what we think we'll actually get, this creates a very different viewpoint. Your goal is as much to experience how it feels to make the request as it is to actually receive; you're not asking for something you need. Because of this, it's a lot less scary to ask, especially if you explain about extravagant requests first! If they say "no," it's not a big deal; this was a playful exploration, so the "no" is less likely to feel like rejection or denial. And in fact, you may well find yourself pleasantly surprised at how people will join the game, will respond to your requests - and may even make some extravagant requests of you!

I challenge you to make one extravagant request each day for a week. I'm betting you'll enjoy it so much that you'll want to keep going.

"We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand." Jennie Jerome Churchill (Lady Randolph Churchill), American wife of Lord Randolph Churchill and mother of British prime minister Winston Churchill, 1854 - 1921