You know how after you’re gone for a week or a month or only a few days and you come home and, for just a moment (or a week), you can’t find even the things you normally use DAILY and that have been in the same place for years?
And isn’t that kinda cool — to know that a few days of new input can completely shift your view, your routine, your same old/same old — so quickly?
And then suppose we think about it a bit, and make the conscious decision not to go back, NOT to remember the routines that once filled our minds quite full to the brim so quickly. Suppose we consciously decide to embrace the shake-up and reinvent at least once a year. Could you do it?
And I don’t mean leaving your family, because family is the best kind of absolute, or giving up your passions, which are passions for a reason, but simply waving tootleoo to habits and assumptions and routines that we blindly embrace and keep on the nightstand simply because they’ve always been there — always within reach — always easy and familiar. Suppose instead we make a conscious decision to embrace the not-familiar, the slightly difficult, the monumentally hard.
There’s much to be said for the familiar and even the easy. It’s why we love coming home, re-entering the embrace that fits just right, the dailiness we’ve created. But suppose we take this moment — this fraction of a second of omg-where’s-the-toothpaste, to look at our lives. To look at our series of moments which can be either tiny embraces or monumental rediscoveries, to hold on to this lost-ness and re-imagine it as an opportunity for reconsideration and reinvention. Suppose we clean house, routine-wise and image-wise and imagining-wise, deciding which to keep, which to commit to wholeheartedly, which to see anew, and which might be holding us back from our own evolution?
Pamela Goode, born 1954, evolved at a rapid pace until 1978, a moderate pace until 1995, stalled for the next 30 years, died.
Let’s not go that route.
Pam Goode Writes 
Hi Pam, I think my evolutionary track was opposite to yours in one respect, I was “stalled out” for about 20 years when I lived in the same home. But the past 15 years since my divorce have been more like.. “evolving at a moderate pace.” Now, I think my biggest challenge is actually re-establishing some (healthy) routines! For example, I’m not at all consistent with my exercise habits and the time when I did this best was when I had a relatively boring, predictable life and schedule. Since I’m traveling more and have lived abroad the past 3 years, it’s been very hard for me to get into a consistent rhythm. And, every trip throws me off of any budding routine I was establishing. I’m definitely still a work in progress! That said, I definitely agree with you that an occasional paradigm-shift is a great way to keep ourselves from stagnating completely. I suppose ideally we strive for a balance between steady/healthy habits and mixing it up to keep life interesting and fresh!
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We’re all works in progress, absolutely. Well, maybe not everyone, but evolution at any pace is a beautiful thing. Great to hear from you!
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Well when I just travelled to Ireland for three weeks with one small suitcase? And by the third day I realized how awesome it is to survive out of one small suitcase! Only basics
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Go Gwen!
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Oh, and can I get a packing list???? ♥️
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What a great ‘re inventive thought’ ! Like bringing some new plants into your garden…perhaps pulling up a few that just don’t belong there in the process, I have some that have been there so long I don’t even know what kind they are!. And voilà a new landscape and attitude. Well said ! and I will definitely put this in the cogs of my brains wheels and work on making conscious changes (for the better of course) in the days ahead.
Onward and thank you~~~~
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Any time!
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Pam, you are so in tune with the zeitgeist! At least you’re writing about what I’m going through. It probably takes more than two to make a zeitgeist but I’m sure we’re not the only ones. Thank you for writing and sharing. It helps make my current life make sense. I haven’t left home to come home and change up the routines. It is just happening. I realized that the way we make our beds has been wrong all along. No one else may follow my lead—especially since I haven’t shared it—but after much experimenting, think I’ve got it right. Thank you for sharing your inner thoughts and keeping the universe in order.
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Yes it’s spinning around us, isn’t it?
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