Tag: Unfamiliar

Rhythms and Routines

Posted on by jabittan
I started a new job a few months back and my commute time has doubled. I was already driving a good distance across Reno, NV (I know it is not LA, San Francisco, or Washington DC but it was still not fun), and now I am driving about twice as far to our State Capitol in Carson City to work for the Legislature. My drive time is now about an hour both ways, for a total of two hours of commuting daily. In addition, where I work has less amenities in the office, which means I need to bring more, prep more, and plan more with what I eat and what I need for the day. What this new job has created for me, with new limitations on my time, is a daily routine where my entire day feels like it is in a time crunch and where I need to be on point at every second if I want to fit in everything and be prepared to have a successful day at work.

 

I am leaning very heavily into my daily routines now. I wrote in the past about Colin Wright’s thoughts on routines in his book Come Back Frayed and Michael Bungay Stanier’s views on habits in his book The Coaching Habit. Today I have another quote from Wright and his book Becoming Who We Need To Be. Right now I am relying on a particular rhythm to help me be successful and live life the way I want to live. But, the rhythm I am building right now does not have to be permanent. I do not need to live this way forever and I can choose whether I want to maintain this rhythm and let it dictate my life, or whether I want things to change. About our rhythms and routines, Wright includes the following, “Many of us fall into rhythms relatively early in life, and then decide, either consciously or subconsciously, that the rhythm we’ve come to know is the totality of life. This is it. This is how things are. The evidence of me experiencing life in this fashion seems to be supported by the hypothesis that this is how life is meant to be; the only way it can be. But this isn’t the case.”

 

I know I can change my daily routine and I’m sure future jobs will necessitate a change in my routine, but a bigger question for me to think about is whether I want to change the general rhythm of my life or whether I want to continue with the general orientation of current life. I try to exercise daily. I try to do a lot of reading, especially during my lunch break, and I try to write each morning. Many of my evenings end up being spent with my wife watching tv, especially if we eat, but none of these pieces of my routine have to be a constant part of my life forever. For me, and for anyone else, little experiments in life are always possible. I could decide that I want to try something different from running or spin biking and try a boxing gym for workouts. I could decide that I don’t want to pursue reading any further and try doing things that are more social and engaging. And at an even bigger level, I could decide that I don’t need to live in a house and could find a small apartment, spend less money on my living arrangement, and take a more flexible job closer to home with different hours to open up different parts of the day.

 

What is important to remember, and what Wright is saying in his quote, is that life is flexible and full of possibilities. We don’t have to settle into any one particular way of living and we can try on different life styles. Just because we were raised a certain way, just because we happen to find ourselves relying on (or simply falling into without noticing) specific routines does not mean that our lives have to be set in one particular way from now until we die. We can have great success and achieve a lot of goals within our routines, but by shaking them off and experimenting, we might find new avenues of life that resonate with us on a more profound and meaningful level, or we might just find a renewed passion for something in life that we did not know could give us meaning and value.

Take Chances

Posted on by jabittan
There are a few things that I have always been terrible at doing.  Planning for trips, meeting up with friends for a late night, and getting involved with group volunteer activities are a few that come to mind.  What all of these activities have in common is that they require that I leave the comfort of my own home for a new adventure.  I enjoy the familiar and the routine, but like anyone else, I become bogged down without the opportunity to have novel experiences navigating the unknown.  The relationships I could build if I made more of an effort to get out and volunteer, spend time with friends, or explore new places would be worth so much more than the money I bank by taking things easy and settling for a quiet evening and an individual workout.

 

James Harmon in his book, Take My Advice, includes a letter written by  Michael Thomas Ford in which the author states, “Take Chances. I know that sounds simplistic, but it’s harder than you think.  I seem to pick this scrap a lot, probably because I need to be reminded of this on a fairly regular basis.  The older you get the more excuses you come up with for why you can’t quit your job and spend three months writing that screenplay or why it’s ridiculous for you to even think about running in that marathon.  of course it’s all a fear of failure. But failing is a lot better than wondering what might have happened.  If you’re pretty sure something isn’t going to kill you, there’s no reason not to give it a shot.”

 

I think that Ford’s quote hits several major points for me.  Taking chances and putting myself in new situations does sound like an easy thing on the surface, but once my day gets started it begins to feel impossible for me to do all of the things that I would like to do, especially when a bigger risk is involved with any given thing.  With my limited time I find that I fall back on the comfortable habits that I have developed.  I have worked hard to build myself a routine where I take care of all the work I need to in a day from work itself, to exercise, cooking and cleaning, prepping for the next day’s lunch, and organizing small things.  What soon looses a space in my day is the exciting and fun that accompanies the unfamiliar.  Spontaneous dinners with co-workers often don’t find a way into my plans, and I never seem to plan that road trip I have been longing for.

 

Ford is encouraging us to get out of our comfortable daily routines that maximize our responsibility and efficiency. He certainly is not advocating for us to be irresponsible and lazy, but rather he is urging us to do something new that will build memories in ways that material items and a checklist never will. The fear of failure that Ford mentions is what drives us into a mere existence as opposed to a full life.  We want to impress others, prove our mental strength, and be productive, but sometimes our motivation for these activities stems from external rewards and sources.  Shutting off the outside voices allows us to ignore the fear of what people would say or what may happen if we do fail at something, and gives us a new reason to do the exciting thing we have always wanted.