It happens to all of us, despite our best intentions.
We fall into a steady, yet admittedly mundane daily routine. Life is dictated by the same things, over and over again. You arise from warm and cozy bed, your entire body still coated in sleepiness. You attend your classes, listening to the same professors and sitting next to the same people. You come back to your dorm, contemplating if you should lie on your bed and watch Netflix, or if you should sit at your desk and start writing your essay. You talk to some of your friends. You might go to the gym. Then you go to bed, and the next morning, everything happens, though in a slightly different manner, all over again.
That sounds pretty depressing, and maybe not incredibly accurate of what life consists of all the time. Life can be full of wonderfully exciting and spontaneous events, whether there are big or small. But sometimes, we are just straight up in a rut.
Though I’m completely content with how my life is going, sometimes I can’t help but feel that I’m stuck. No, there isn’t superglue smathered on the bottom of my shoes, but there might as well be. I look around and I feel like everyone else around me is doing something with their lives and going places. They are going off to fantastical places, either on vacation or for studying abroad. They seem to have their life together, which does indeed have the power to be inspirational, but can also be just downright upsetting. What’s their secret?! What am I doing wrong?!
It’s completely irrational, of course, but it can really get under my skin.
The solution to breaking free of your typical pattern is to make a change. It sounds simple, but in reality, it can be incredibly difficult. It’s so easy to think about what we want to change in our lives, but it’s challenging to actually go through the actions of instituting it.
If you feel stuck, know that you are definitely not alone in thinking so. Even though we typically think of change as grand, sweeping gestures, there are little things we can easily do everyday in order to shake up our daily lives.
Take on a new hobby. Have you ever wanted to learn how to knit? Play the piano? Nothing is impossible. You could learn about something new. What fascinates you? Different cultures? Politics? Cooking? The ocean? We live in an age where there is wealth of information available on even the most obscure topics. Try to discover new places. What about that cafe downtown? The park you drive by everyday on your way to work? Maybe even drive to the next town over or out into the countryside. We all have a list of places that we go to frequently… why not make that list longer?
But as I said before… easier said than done. Even though you might want to pursue these suggests earnestly, I bet a bunch of excuses are running through your head. That you don’t have the time. You don’t want to waste your time. You have better things to do. You think it’s not worth the effort. These are the things that hold us back from getting more out of life.
We also have to remember that there are going to be big changes ahead for us in life, and that we are taking strides towards these occasions, even though they might feel miniscule sometimes. I know that I’m going to graduate from college someday, and then enter grad school or begin my career. I’m going to eventually move away from hometown and family and be alone in a new place for the first time. I might get married and have children someday. People are going to fall in and out of my life. Events are going to happen, whether they be tragic or jubilant. Life is always changing. We just don’t notice it sometimes.
“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” ~ Eric Roth, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” screenplay
