Every Day For Thirty-One Days
The universe is absolutely chock full of different little life hacks that you can do to give yourself a boost. They don’t usually require monumental actions on your part. They may even be considered by a majority of human beings to be inconsequential and are dismissed as of no value. C’est la vie. One of these overlooked little things that you can do to add to your pile of life’s poker chips is to insert one thing different into your daily routine for a month. Pay attention. Watch for little signs of good coming your way. In some way, this alchemic action seems to help keep the pores of your mind open to better receive “good stuff”. Your creativity and brainpower are stimulated. You may ask just how doing something differently bring you any possible benefit? It’s stupid you say. Science doesn’t support such a notion. Well then, don’t do it. Stop reading now and wait for next Thursday’s post. As is always the case, you choose. Free will is a most beautiful gift from the Almighty.
It Doesn’t Hurt and It Can Be Fun
There is entirely too much drudgery in the daily life of human beings, especially after the “school-job-marriage-children-family-duties-responsibilities-blls to be paid-crises to be handled-conflict to be dealt with-“you better go to that job you dislike or else”-“maybe I will get five years after i retire to do what I like” phase of your life begins. First of all, plotting out “thirty-one days of difference” is not painful. It will not hurt you. Second of all, you may even find it to be a fun diversion from your regular rut, excuse me, I mean, routine. When you can do something that you find is fun that also contributes to your overall wellbeing, I believe that is what is termed a “win-win” situation.
Don’t Take The Freeway Home Today
To jumpstart this little personal experiment, here are thirty one examples of ways that you can experience something different each day of the month. If you find that some are not to your liking, feel free to cook up your own.
1) Take a Different Way To and From Work or School (that it may take longer is not the point here).
2) Eat your meals with your non-dominant hand with one eye closed (after this you will appreciate more your dominant hand and your second eye).
3) Drink your morning coffee out of a different cup in a different place in a different way (for example, if you drink with with cream and sugar, drink it black).
4) Do a one day fast from something you do every day (social media, texting, soda, beer, food, tv, sugar, talking, worrying. etc.). I know, this can be really hard.
5 ) Do something totally random in a public setting (like Peter Finch from the movie “Network” – “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”).
6) Go to the supermarket, pick out one fruit or vegetable you never ate before and eat it.
7) Block out one uninterupted hour without fail to something that you have been wanting to do or start but never seem to have time for. If you can’t do this one, maybe you really do not want to do it.
8) Read one full chapter in a new book.
9) Take a short walk along a route that you never walked before (please be safe, no walking where you do no feel safe).
10) Learn how to say thank you in a foreign language and say it to someone when the occasion arises (ie., someone holds open a door for you). An example would be “As the Polish say, Dziekuje”.
11) Watch a movie (something without commercials) that you never watched before.
12) Buy a newspaper and read something on each page.
13) Wear a shirt that you haven’t worn in over a year.
14) Pick out one favorite bible verse or a favorite quote from someone and continually repeat it in your mind over and over again for 20 minutes while you are commuting to or from work or school or some other activity where your train of thought will not be interrupted
15) Treat yourself at one meal (breakfast, lunch or dinner) to something you never eat or drink because it is just too expensive. Savor it.
16) Just get started on something, 15 minutes will suffice, something that needs to get done that you have been procrastinatiing on. The starting of it sometimes busts the dam.
17) Spend fifteen miniutes outlining a plan to accomplish one single thing that you should have done years ago and have always come up with an excuse for not doing it. Then, even if it is a tiny ten minutes per day, start doing it, even if it takes you another ten years.
18) Drink eight eight ounce glasses of spring water over sixteen hours (four half litre bottles). That comes to four ounces per hour.
19) Go to bed three hours later than usual (for me this would be 1:30 instead of 10:30) Or wake up three hours earlier than usual (for me this would be 3:00 instead of 6:00).
20) Send 3 people a silent blessing that you pass on the street or in a car. An example: “God bless this person today. Thank you”.
21) Get a full eight hours sleep. Or if you already do, then stay in bed for another hour or two.
22) Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
23) Walk in the rain for ten minutes (a light rain, not a deluge).
24) Declutter for a solid hour (closet, bureau, storage box, your car, your mind).
25) If you live in southern New Jersey, order a cheesesteak from Chick’s Deli (Cherry Hill) or a pizza from Marinos Pizzeria (Runnemede) or Szechuan food from Han Dynasty (Cherry Hill).
26) Take an old fashioned 30 minute soaking bath.
27) Compose a four line song and sing it once every hour in your mind (or if you are alone, out loud).
28) Take your blood pressure once in the morning and once in the evening.
29) Write down something you want to learn about the computer or your smartphone – spend one solid uninterrupted hour at least getting started in learning it.
30) Watch the geese or the birds or the clouds for ten solid minutes.
31) Find one different thing every hour to say a silent thank you for (probably the easiest thing to do of this whole list).
32) If you experience a really vivid dream that sticks with you after you wake up, write down the main points of it and ponder it over the course of the day.
Again, if you fail to see how any of this will help you, just do it anyway. It won’t kill ya. See what happens. None of the things above will take more than one hour out of your day (most will take much less). For one measly month, you can afford it. And you just might have some fun along the way. Before starting this experiment, write your thirty-one things down in your notebook or a sheet of paper and check them off each day as you do them. If you subsequently perceive that nothing happened as a result, you are wrong. You experienced thirty-one new experiences to add to your life’s collection. Those experiences all add to your lifetime of learning. And learning is good (especially if you do not have to do it “the hard way”). If you don’t like some of these examples, by all means, make up your own, exercise your Imagination. If good things happen for you following this little experiment, the skeptic will say, “Nonsense, they would have happened anyway.” How about this response — You decide. Refuse to allow any other human being to decide what you are supposed to believe. Refuse to allow the controllers to have control over your beliefs. They do not have that right. You were born with free will. Use it. Live free. Believe free.
