What Being Impulsive Means Because It’s More Than Taking Spontaneous Adventures At 2AM

You have a bad habit of sending drunken texts and calling your exes because once an idea pops into your head you have to execute it. Even if you know something is a bad idea, it will not stop you. You will say fuck it and do the thing you promised yourself you would never do again.

You can never keep your crushes a secret because you have too much trouble controlling your temptation. You will not be able to stop yourself from texting someone first and liking their selfies and complimenting them on how attractive they look. You wear your heart on your sleeve even when you wish you could keep it stuffed in your chest.

You end up dating the wrong people because you listen to your heart, and your gut, over the warning bells in your head. Your common sense never raises its voice loud enough to prevent you from taking the wrong path. You run straight after what you want without stopping to consider the consequences. You do what feels good in the moment. You do not think ahead. You think about the present, the now, because you can worry about tomorrow tomorrow.

You are a multitasker. You have trouble sticking to one thing at a time. You jump from one crush to another, or one chore to another, or one song to another, because you get bored easily. You change your mind every two seconds. You always know what you want, but what you want is constantly shifting.

You have a hard time breaking your bad habits. You do a good job of not biting your nails or smoking or eating junk food for chunks at a time — but then your impulses will get the better of you and you will break your streak. Once that happens, you will be back at square one and forced to start all over again.

You talk too much. You say the wrong thing. You accidentally blurt out comments that probably should have been kept inside of your head. You accidentally hurt the people you love the most because you do not have a filter. You never censor yourself.

You share secrets with people who never earned your trust. You spill gossip you should not have been spreading. You act before you think. You speak before you have the chance to run the words through your head to test whether they are appropriate.

There have been a million stupid things you have done that you could not explain afterward because there wasn’t a rational thought process leading up to it. You just did it because you wanted to do it. Because you thought it would make you happy.

When you are impulsive, it’s not all fun and games. You are not always taking a midnight road trip with your friends. You are not always booking a spontaneous flight overseas. Sometimes your impulsiveness leads you toward toxic things. Sometimes it makes your world much harder than it has to be.