...or a BOOST in the...
(It reads "more funny" if I don't try and complete the sentence, so we'll let that hang.)
Y'know, it's kinda weird this year, not walking into the January rush of people at the gyms and studios. You've noticed that before, right? Regulars would always complain about the crowds, about the half-clueless new people who'd bought a New-Year's-resolution membership, only to disappear by February and maybe come back again next winter.
I'm missing that. I liked seeing new people, watching things get re-shuffled, and then seeing the few who actually stuck to something new once the crowds subsided.
The cliche is that people commit to change or improve, but the commitment is transient because the WORK of change is kind of a slog. It's understandable -- whatever your life is like normally, it's hard to get up the effort to pursue "better" if you're already living with "eh, I guess this is all right..."
"I guess this is all right..." doesn't really light a fire under your butt, and if "better" isn't REALLY bright and shiny when you visualize it, it's tough to direct much energy toward it.
I'm not going to make a big self-improvement pitch here. There's a distorted extreme to that, that's not too healthy -- constant dissatisfaction, anxiety about status, fear of missing out, over-optimization...
There's a lot of wisdom in being at peace with what you've got, wherever you are right now.
There's a problem of inertia, though -- moving in small ways, in a direction that ends up far from where you want to go. You can get used to anything, especially changes that creep in to your life and accumulate slowly -- a frog set in a pot of warm water, not realizing that it's being heated to boiling until it's too late.
I'm not bringing that to any Big Ominous Conclusion or anything. But it's the end of January, the excitement and busyness of the holidays is over. We're almost a year into a massive disruption of everyone's lives. Whatever passes for "the new normal" starts to feel routine, but that's kind of weird, isn't it? I mean, we're all living in a strange, in-between time, and twelve months ago I wouldn't have predicted anything like the way things are now.
It's easy to get isolated in the winter -- you're less likely to go outside, the days are short. And that's in addition to the masks and the social distancing and the vaccines that may or may not solve everything, the new virus strains that may or may not be worse than whatever's already floating around. It's easy to get lost in your own head if you're not careful. Easy to get stuck in a rut.
SO, I'm trying to make sure to at least step out for a while and walk in the crappy weather, get a little uncomfortable every day. I'm trying to be sure to pause in the middle of my habits & routines, remind myself of why I'm doing what I'm doing and ask myself if that's taking me somewhere I want to go.
Honestly, I ask the question and the answer is often "I dunno..." Seems like good practice to ask, though. If I'm stuck, I'd rather think about it now than have the realization sneak up on me.
Anyway, we're about a month into the new year. I hope you're looking ahead, staying alert. Paying attention. "Attention" is the thing that all our devices are hijacking right now, right? I spend too much time with online distractions myself, but I'm grateful to be able to stay connected with people this way.
I'll leave it at that right now. I thank you for YOUR attention, and I thank you for your time.
Be well!