As I was walking up the stairs to my dorm, I saw that someone had printed out a little quote on a piece of paper and taped it to the doorway. It reads, “Make each day your masterpiece” - John Wooden.
I used to always sit down at my desk on Sundays and plan out my entire week. However, lately I’ve been finding it hard to wrap my mind around anything that isn’t within the next few hours of the same day. To-do lists can so easily become overwhelming, but I’m trying to remember that just because there are things to do, it doesn’t mean I have to do them. There will always be enough work to stay inside the library 24/7 and enough chores to hibernate inside my dorm all day.
On the other hand, our society seems to be obsessed with this idea of productivity. We must stay socially relevant, progress both as individuals and as a whole, and somehow find a way to justify our existences. “Sloth” is even one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Personally, if I’m not running around in some sort of occupation frenzy, a flood of guilt more often than not eventually overcomes me. Even on my “days off,” I still feel the need to wash all of my life laundry, so to speak, and get around to all of the small tasks that I’ve been meaning to do. I think this leads back to the saying that we’ve all heard time and time again: “With great privilege, comes great responsibility.” Perhaps the desire to accomplish great feats and stay on top of our game stems from feeling sick with privilege. We have to prove the reason for which we were smiled on by fate, and so we create these expectations for ourselves to actually do something worthwhile with our time.
With this looming over us, how does one go about making each day a masterpiece? Well, each day is made up of a series of choices, and we can choose to make each of those choices consistent with how we feel. It takes a certain degree of self-awareness to understand why we do what we do, but if we do it properly, each day can become a carefully constructed representation of something special.
There’s an ice-breaker game called “Rose, Bud, Thorn.” A rose represents something good that happened throughout the week, a thorn represents something bad that happened, and a bud represents something that you are looking forward to. Whenever I am asked what my “bud” is, I usually can only come up with seemingly trivial events, such as taking a warm shower, finally crawling into bed, or getting to see the developed photos from my disposable camera. Although small, you can look forward to similar satisfactions that punctuate your day. Your daily masterpiece could include spending an excessive amount of time watching the sticky honey drip off of your spoon and into your green tea in the morning or listening to a song that perfectly describes the weather on the way to class. Smile in rosy gratitude at the fact that there is always something to occupy yourself with.
Finally, try to see every seemingly irrelevant and “lazy” part of your day in a poetic light. That afternoon nap you took can symbolize your relentless pursuit to take care of yourself, and that movie you watched instead of doing your homework can symbolize your commitment to explore the different realms of art. The majority of your deepest thoughts come to you while you are doing nothing. Then, instead of aimlessly crossing items off of your to-do lists, use your smoothest and most beautifully colored pen to delightfully realize you are one step closer to becoming one with the ever-evolving vision you are creating for yourself!
