(I copied this from a blog kept by a person who has been doing one thing differently from how he/she [I don't know which] usually has been doing them.)
Doing something different everyday can help shift us out of our routines and make us more aware of what we are doing and why we are doing it. At it’s most basic level is just about having an excuse to push yourself a little. In a more fundamental way, it’s about becoming more mindful – making deliberate choices rather than living life on autopilot.
Remember, doing something different daily is not about big, huge things that mean you have to completely change your life. It’s mainly tiny little things that all us normal people can do. In the early days of my year of doing different daily I was criticized a lot for some of my choices (thanks, various members of my immediate family). They felt some of my choices were too small, too insignificant, too pathetic to count.
Bollocks.
Doing different daily isn’t about size or scale, it’s simply about waking up a bit, moment by moment, and pushing yourself an insy winsy tiny bit each day.
It’s not about being radical – you don’t have to spend each day living according to the actual rules in the Bible (see A J Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically) or having sex everyday for a year (see Charla Muller 365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy). All power to the people who can do such stuff, but I’m not one of them. I’m way too lazy and anyway, I have a family, work and a whole load of other stuff to be getting on with that wearing long flowing robes, giving sermons on the mount and having constant sex would interfere with.
Doing something small but different each day isn’t a radical act, but you just might find it has radical results. You don’t have to change your life to do this, but it by doing this you’ll certainly change how you feel about your life. Oh, and doing different daily isn’t about you following a list of things of the things I’ve done either.
You have to make your own choices each day about what you do differently.
-------------------- My father used to say: I don't care what else you do in life, just don't be an asshole. People, forgive me when I forget what my daddy said. Cut back the proliferating list of people whose opinions can hurt you. Unless they have done or want to do you some good, their views are just not worth tracking. Saul Bellow “People are just cannibals unless they leave each other alone.” Doris Lessing Those whom the gods would save, they dower with compassion. Mr. P. Silocybin
Edited by champinhom (10/09/15 08:56 PM)
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