Maybe San Francisco wasn’t something I needed. Maybe it was something I wanted badly enough to finally put skin in the game.

In one month I met more people than I had in the previous decade. I went to more parties, ate more junk food than I ever thought I would, and nothing terrible happened. Life didn’t fall apart because I loosened my grip.

This morning I went out for what I thought would be a short run. Near the end, I saw a group getting ready for a training session. I walked up to the woman leading it and asked if I could join. A few minutes later, I was running alongside twenty strangers.

We ended up covering more than nine miles. I was running on an empty stomach, fueled mostly by coffee. My breathing got heavy, my legs started hurting, and more than once I wanted to stop. But because everyone else kept going, I kept going too.

By the end I was exhausted, but genuinely happy.

That morning reminded me of something simple: most of the best moments in my life weren’t planned. They started because I was willing to ask one small question:

“Can I join?”

It applies to conversations, hackathons, running clubs, communities, and even moving to San Francisco. Looking back, that question has changed my life far more than trying to become more productive ever did.