Five Second Rule

Oct 25, 2023
5 min read

You only have 5 seconds to act on an impulse before it dies!

Now, I know we are all more familiar with the other five second rule of when our food tragically drops to the floor, and we must pick it up in five seconds or less in order for it to still be viable. I think the jury is still out on this one, so I will leave it to my readers' best judgment! Today, I want to share a rule with all of you that changed my life: the five second rule (and the much cooler version of it, if you ask me). This one comes from a life-changing TED Talk I saw for the first time last year, and I've linked it here for anyone who is interested in a more thorough introduction, but I will do my best. Essentially, the five second rule states that when you have the impulse to do something, you have exactly five seconds to act on that impulse before it dies in your brain, leaving you wondering that pesky question of "what if?"

Nerd-out with me for a second here. Your brain is a three pound universe that processes 70,000 thoughts each day using 100 billion neurons that connect at more than 500 trillion points through synapses that travel 300 miles/hour. The signals that travel through these interconnected neurons form the basis of memories, thoughts, and feelings. This is a very technical way of saying that there are galaxies upon galaxies of information in your brain firing on all cylinders at all points of your day. You are making unconscious decisions constantly, I am simply bringing our awareness to these thoughts now in this little blog post.

How many impulses do we allow to die in our brains everyday? For example, if you have the impulse to read out loud in class, you have exactly five seconds to volunteer before you are left there thinking to yourself, "why does no one ever volunteer? Surely we all know how to read." If you have the impulse to compliment someone's outfit, you have exactly five seconds to say something before they've already passed you by. If you have the impulse to cut your own hair, you have five seconds to pick up the scissors. If you have the impulse to give the guest speaker a standing ovation, you have five seconds to get up off of your chair. If you have the impulse to say "I love you" to someone and mean it, you have five seconds to muster up every fiber of courage in your body and say it. Our lives can change in the blink of an eye if we only have the guts to act on our own impulses.

It seems silly that we would let all of these potentially precious moments pass us by. So then I got to thinking a little more about it, and all of my obstacles boiled down to one common antagonist: fear. I am an anxious overthinker by nature, and based on the conversations I've had this week, it's becoming increasingly apparent to me that most people are. This brings me to the million dollar question: what are we so afraid of? Rejection? Failure? Disappointment? Humiliation? Death? These are all profoundly real fears which keep us from doing what we want to do. No one wants to be told "no" even if redirection is the best solution. No one wants to fail even though that is the only way we can ever learn all of life's most important lessons. No one wants to disappoint anybody even though measuring up to everyone's expectations of who we ought to be all the time is impossible. No one wants to be humiliated even though it is only through humility that we come to admire the type of person we want to be. And no one ever wants to die even though death comes for us all eventually anyways.

I know this is ominous and a total bummer to think about, but I want you to ask yourself a very important question: If I know that I am going to die tomorrow, what impulses am I going to wish I acted on today?

Life can be really, really scary. Even the best laid plans can get screwed up in a matter of seconds. We spend all this time worrying and worrying and worrying some more even when we know worrying is probably the most overrated activity. I spend so much time going in circles in my own head that I never do the things I genuinely want to do. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than that fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. I've reflected on times I have been sick to my stomach with nerves and so afraid to go on that I could barely move. And yet, I did the thing that scared me anyways. You have persevered through everything that once terrified you, and you have emerged triumphant. Fear kills more of these life-changing impulses that any failure, humiliation, rejection, or disappointment ever will. Embrace your fears: it's an excellent indicator that you still care, that you still have something to lose. The brave person is not the person who does not feel fear, but the one who is the most afraid and acts on the impulse anyway. Instead of denying these fears, declare them, say them out loud, admit them, give them the credit they deserve... and then find the courage deep inside of you to overcome them.

My sister and me used to listen to one of those motivational podcasts on those particularly cold Monday mornings in January on our drives to school. There was always this line that went "are you living life or is life living you?" and it stuck with me. Life's not fair. It never was, it isn't now, and it won't ever be. Don't fall into the trap, the entitlement trap, of feeling like you are a victim. You are not. You have all the agency in your own life. You are not on the struggle bus, you are the bus driver. You have a brain in your head and you have feet in your shoes, you may steer yourself in any direction you choose. Life is hard, some days it feels impossible, and yet we keep on living anyways. Take pride in your inner strength and spend some time looking back every once in a while to see how far you've come.

In the words of the brilliant Meredith Grey, "knowing is better than wondering. Waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beats the hell out of never trying." If you never try, you're never going to know what you are truly capable of. It is up to us to never allow fear of the unknown to keep us from living. We come to a crossroads in life every single day. It's up to us whether we persist, pivot, or concede. Your life only has to make sense to you. The impulses you have are usually good indicators of what it is that you truly want to do. Go with your gut. Face the music. Act on the impulse. Get busy living or get busy dying! The choice is yours.