What’s new with you?
Same old, same old?
There’s even an acronym for our routine: SSDD, same stuff, different day.
It’s like living in the movie Groundhog Day, when each day is a carbon copy of the day before. It’s predictable and comfortable, but living life in a rut also prevents us from growing and flourishing as human beings.
We fall asleep at the wheel of life, and fail to realize our full potential.
Most of us are familiar with the well-travelled road effect of arriving at a familiar destination and not remembering the drive. When we travel familiar routes, it’s easy to zone out and fail to notice our surroundings.
It’s the nature of the mind to stay awake in new experiences and fall asleep, or go unconscious, with what’s familiar.
So too, when we get stuck in a rut in life. We can end up sleep-walking through our lives instead of living them with intention and purpose.
While arriving at our destination without noticing the trip is a common experience when driving, I don’t want it to be the way I live my life. I believe life isn’t meant to be a repeat of the same days, over and over, until we’re done.
It would be tragic to arrive at our final destination in life only to find we failed to really live the lives we wanted. If we’re alive and breathing, then there’s a purpose in our being here.
We’re not meant to just sleep walk through our days, but to constantly grow and evolve as we inhabit our days.
There are many people who don’t even like the rut they’re living in, but continue on with it, because it’s what they know. It’s easy to grow comfortable with our discomfort with life, and we can settle for living a life that no longer motivates and excites us.
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. As Henry Ford said, “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
It’s easy to continue doing only what we already know and what we’re good at, staying safe within our comfort zones. We’ll never expand and grow if we don’t try new things.
Kids try new things all the time, and we encourage them as they grow, even if they’re not perfect. It’s not about the end result; it’s about the process of trying and creating.
At some point on the route to becoming an adult, it becomes easy to stop taking chances with trying new things. We often tell ourselves stories of why we shouldn’t or can’t do new things, but often these stories aren’t true.
It’s transformative to stretch and grow as we venture into new territory. Colour outside the lines.
It’s comfortable living on the merry-go-round of life, each day being a repetition of the one before.
It may be comfortable, but quite frankly, it’s boring and not the way we’re meant to live as creative human beings. SSDD causes us to fall asleep at the wheel and fail to experience the richness of life.
As our brains stay stuck in the same neural pathways day-in -and-day-out, we fail to develop new pathways in our brain. Incorporating mindful changes, learning a new hobby or skill, or even taking a different route on our travels keeps the brain engaged and active.
What’s something new that you’d love to do?
This is the perfect time to shake things up a little and try something new and different.
Step outside of your comfort zone because, quite frankly, comfort is over-rated.
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.