A few years ago, my new year's resolution was to do one thing differently every day. It turned out to be an easy resolution to keep, and it also made for many fulfilling days. It's easy to repeat the same things over and over, to unintentionally create well-worn paths that lead us to the same place over and over again. And then we wonder why our lives feel a little flat.
I still have problems breaking out of patterns. For instance, at a Thai restaurant, I order the same thing every single time: pad kee mao with tofu. One time, I ordered a different dish at Sticky Rice at Western and Irving, and hey — it was delicious! So then I wound up ordering pad kee mao everywhere else, and at Sticky Rice, I'd order those little Thai pancakes. Clearly, I have much to learn about diversification.
Anyway, in an attempt to resuscitate the whole "do something different each day" idea, last night I watched the sky darken around the moon before taking a roundabout way home. The trip took longer, and I was paranoid that a crazy bus rider would steal my teeth, but the change of scenery was refreshing. Since it was early, I decided to go out for happy hour after work. Wielding my trusty fake Moleskine, I curled up at a table and blathered on for a few pages. Sitting in the curved corner of a booth felt just like it did when I used to do it in Chicago. (See here for embarrassing example of loner-style writing times, including yet another Buffy mention.) After arriving home, I roasted some zucchini and cleaned the dishes as I cooked. Newness all around.
So I'm thinking that maybe as we make more changes in our routines, it becomes easier for other changes to follow. Doing one tiny thing differently is a gentle way to step out of patterns, and — for me, at least — then making bigger shifts seems natural. (Of course, I could be wrong, but it wouldn't be the first time.) Baby steps can lead to bigger leaps.
After my father died, I realized how little time we have to live. Yeah, you hear people say that life is short, but it wasn't until September that I actually felt what that means. Decades from now, I don't want to be an old lady sitting on a pile of regrets. There will have been mistakes, of course, but I want to look back and see a full and varied life. I think imagining ourselves in old age can be a great motivator to do more with our days; nobody ever fondly recalls the years spent entering numbers in an Excel spreadsheet, you know? On that note, um, it's time to make the doughnuts, and I'm already so late.
I still have problems breaking out of patterns. For instance, at a Thai restaurant, I order the same thing every single time: pad kee mao with tofu. One time, I ordered a different dish at Sticky Rice at Western and Irving, and hey — it was delicious! So then I wound up ordering pad kee mao everywhere else, and at Sticky Rice, I'd order those little Thai pancakes. Clearly, I have much to learn about diversification.
Anyway, in an attempt to resuscitate the whole "do something different each day" idea, last night I watched the sky darken around the moon before taking a roundabout way home. The trip took longer, and I was paranoid that a crazy bus rider would steal my teeth, but the change of scenery was refreshing. Since it was early, I decided to go out for happy hour after work. Wielding my trusty fake Moleskine, I curled up at a table and blathered on for a few pages. Sitting in the curved corner of a booth felt just like it did when I used to do it in Chicago. (See here for embarrassing example of loner-style writing times, including yet another Buffy mention.) After arriving home, I roasted some zucchini and cleaned the dishes as I cooked. Newness all around.
So I'm thinking that maybe as we make more changes in our routines, it becomes easier for other changes to follow. Doing one tiny thing differently is a gentle way to step out of patterns, and — for me, at least — then making bigger shifts seems natural. (Of course, I could be wrong, but it wouldn't be the first time.) Baby steps can lead to bigger leaps.
After my father died, I realized how little time we have to live. Yeah, you hear people say that life is short, but it wasn't until September that I actually felt what that means. Decades from now, I don't want to be an old lady sitting on a pile of regrets. There will have been mistakes, of course, but I want to look back and see a full and varied life. I think imagining ourselves in old age can be a great motivator to do more with our days; nobody ever fondly recalls the years spent entering numbers in an Excel spreadsheet, you know? On that note, um, it's time to make the doughnuts, and I'm already so late.
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