Monday, March 14, 2011

Doing Things Differently

I’ve been wanting to blog about this for the longest time, but kept forgetting.

Earlier this year, I had the best time reading a series of posts that my fabulous fellow-Libra friend, Meleah, over at Momma Mia, Mea Culpa shared about her discoveries in Doing Things Differently.

In her posts, she documented her experiences of breaking away from her everyday routine; trying things completely dissimilar.

I was so inspired by Meleah, that I tried doing things differently myself just to see what it felt like. I first tried it on my days off from work, and I’ve gotta tell you….it was very cool!

Now if any of you are anything like me, you take great joy in doing things the same.

Routine allows us to feel comfortable because it's familiar.

For many of us, routine gives our lives a sense of stability.

Yet, there’s a ‘catch’ to living our lives strictly like this.

How do we react when the world around us suddenly throws us a curve ball and disrupts our doing things the same?

Most of us feel frazzled and annoyed. I know I do.

I mean, god forbid our routine gets disturbed. It’s as if someone pulled the rug out from under us.

Not only that, but often times we don’t even realize that doing things the same keeps us from discovering how much we can learn from being spontaneous and doing things differently.

I’ll give you a for instance….

Often when I go grocery shopping, I have a routine. I shop on the same days and at the same time every week. I go down the same isles; getting the same food. I go to the same checkout person because I feel comfortable with her. And when I walk home from the grocery store, I walk home the same way by using the same streets.

It’s all so the same and predictable.

However, last week I had a monkey wrench thrown into my routine, when I discovered that the store was out of one of my favorite food items which I purchase every week.

You should have seen me….I acted like a spoiled little brat who just had his grape lollipop taken away from him.

(stomping my feet and grumbling to myself) I said, “Who the HELL do they think they are being out of my favorite food item? When I get home, I’m going to call corporate and tell them they need to get their act together or I’m not going to shop in this PIECE OF SHIT store anymore!”

I acted like Bette Davis as the tempermental Margo Channing in the movie, All About Eve.

Then, after calming myself down, I happened to notice a new frozen food item that was next to the item I usually purchase. I picked it up and glanced at the picture on the box. It looked kind of interesting, so I decided to purchase two of them.

Well…..can I just tell you? They were the BEST things I had ever tasted. And as I was eating one for dinner that night, I thought to myself, “Ya see, you JERK FACE….you discovered something completely different, and it was GOOD!”

This incident forced me to break away from my routine and try something different.

Now, I’m not saying that doing things the same is all negative, because sometimes we need structure in our lives to keep it organized. However, we also need to learn how to be adaptable to when life throws us a curve ball and gives us the opportunity to do something different.

God knows, I do.

I now try and do at least one thing differently in my life, once a week. Even if it’s something as simple as having my afternoon cup of coffee at a different Starbucks, or walking home from the grocery store using different streets.

It seems to keep my life fresh; seeing things differently.

So, I ask all of you to try doing something completely different from how you normally do it.

Go ahead, try it this week.

Who knows? You might just discover something very interesting…..

….and unique!