Wake up. Eat a bite. Go the gym. Back home to drink coffee and eat breakfast. Spot clean the house. Get ready for work. Work. Come home for dinner. Watch some TV or read. Go to bed. Repeat......
Sound familiar to anyone? I was recently struck by how repetitive daily life can become unless fully conscious of how little I am doing to change things up once in a while. I'm not saying that routines are bad or an unnecessary part of life. In fact, I'm surprised by how unstructured some folks can seem to live their day-to-day life and often wonder how they do it? As a fairly linear thinker, I find that I am often thinking of ways to streamline my life which ultimately leads to an efficient but all too predictable outcome. What led to this epiphany? A simple act of spontaneity and a bit of irresponsibility. But is that such a bad thing? I say not.
In this age of tightening our belts given the sad state of the economy and gasoline prices that can break our budgets, I realized about a week ago that it had been a looooong time since I did anything "just because." The inspiration was my desire to book a flight to surprise my Mom for her pre-birthday weekend at the end of April only to learn that she was planning to be in Colorado that weekend. Rather than give up on my desire to be wild and crazy, we shifted our plans to fly to Colorado and now find ourselves booked for what should be an amazing, albeit expensive, long weekend. But, I have ZERO regrets for doing it. In fact, I started to realize that even my attempt to surprise my Mom for her birthday was, in some ways, just the same ol' routine: book a flight on Alaska Airlines, fly to Portland, spend time with Mom in Vancouver, fly home. While it would be have been wonderful, this Colorado trip has totally energized me and is something I'm looking forward to more than I could have ever imagined.
What I have I learned? Sure, changing up the route I take to work every once in a while helps. Planning different meals is a good start. Changing my hair style.....er....wait, that isn't even possible. My lesson for myself is that sometimes you just have to throw responsibility and practicality out the proverbial window and do something just because it's new, fresh, and energizing. As the old saying, "You only live once" rings in my head, I'm listening intently and taking it to heart.
What are YOU going to do to break your routine and reignite your joie de vivre?
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