Breaking Monotony With Small Steps
Here is a motivational and thought-provoking article reaching out to readers who may need to make some hard changes in their lives. Certainly, Ayodeji Awosika is a very brilliant and inspirational writer who offers regular wisdom and motivation through powerful pieces. This passage stuck out at me the most:
Crap job. 10-hour blocks of the day either going to, working at, or coming home from that job. Incessant distractions, almost zero time in the present moment, Netflix, and chill with a side of a smartphone running on an infinite loop. Processed food, pills, uppers to get ready for the day, and downers to escape it. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
How many of us find our days to be like this to some degree? This “rinse and repeat” cycle can occur even if one is not stuck in a back-grinding dead-end job or broken relationship. Indeed, each of us is certainly offered our own unique blend of the best immeasurable blessings life has to offer. But we still get captured in that “hamster wheel” of the same events, routines, obligations, and zero time for rebalance or renewal. How to break it? Here is a great list offered for the new year. Additionally, we can start changing it up with the small things.
Before breaking up key parts of your life, break up the smaller things. You don’t have to put in your two weeks notice and try to make it big as a Youtube celebrity to find extra meaning. Start with the small things like breaking up your daily routine. And break up things regularly enough to keep it interesting. If you are a busy parent, spouse, and full-time big-whig career-person, why not work to shake things up once in awhile? Bring home exotic foods for your family dinners once or twice a month if you or your spouse normally settle for the traditional chicken or pot roast. Take a day each week to leave work early so you can take an extra long jog or visit the boutique shop you have been meaning to peruse. Heck, download a captivating new app or subscribe to a new streaming channel to change up your digital life. Whatever it be, changing up the small things should help bring unmatched new fun and unexpected meaning to your life.
Have special things. Build special things into your everyday life to make it more exciting and meaningful — both for yourself and in your relationships. When I was growing up, my parents made sure to offer a lot of special “extra things” my siblings and I each got to take turns doing. We each took turns going out to breakfast on Saturday mornings with my mom and dad. We each took turns going with my parents to pick out Saturday night movie rentals at the video shop. Even summer chores were assigned as “special projects” delegated to each of us.
As an adult, you find those special things become sparkles of silver on the rich tapestry of life. Special alone time set aside for exercise, personal hobbies, or meditation and prayer is helpful for self-care. Special time just for bonding with partners, children, family members, or close friends is essential to help nurture these relationships and keep balance(even if this is just sending a special message to a friend through email, Facebook, or text). Like small fibers in a rope, these special moments and events can help fuse together the random passing days of life into a more meaningful whole and remind us of what really matters.
These are a couple of ways to keep life meaningful and fun on small scales. There are many other ways that can be added to the list. Hopefully, we do not need to take actions as drastic as ending a job or detaching from primary relationships(though these things sometimes are necessary). So much can be gathered just from small steps. Life is full of infinite riches unfolding each second, and part of what we must do is take time to savor a just a few of those riches trickling out of the ordinary.
