One Thing (Really Two)
A friend reshared this old isolation well-being list on Facebook this week. Most are things that I’ve done the whole year. (Yay for drinking water!) But I loved two things on the list:
- Do one thing you’ll be glad you did later
- Do one thing just because you want to
I’ve seen the first one written in other ways on various life advice lists: Do one thing you’ll be happy you did ten years from now. That is a very tall order. I have zero clue what I’ll be happy I did ten minutes from now much less ten years from now. But there are plenty of small tasks that I put off daily because they’re annoying, and I know I would feel good at the end of the day if they were done.
And the second one also is a favourite inclusion on various life lists, though I really like that wording. I often get to the end of my day and feel like I spent 98% of it doing required tasks or things to make other people happy. That was the impulse for #15Best—to take 15 minutes per day for myself. But that time is feeling a little rote. I need more impulsive happy moments. Just because.
But the doing is actually the less interesting part to me. I wonder how I would feel if I kept a list daily of the thing I took care of or the thing I did just because to reflect on at the end of the month. Was cleaning the dead plant out of the flower pot worth it? (Yes, probably.) Am I still happy that I grabbed that handful of jelly beans just because? (Maybe less so in retrospect.)
I’m playing with that idea, mostly because I think humans are terrible at predicting what will make us feel satisfied in the future. Myself included.
4 comments
The absolute best things I did for myself during the pandemic were maintaining a healthy lifestyle (exercising 4-5 days a week, eating well 80% of the time, and meditating) and reading more (but lighter reads than my usual choices). I confess that my choice to continue healthy habits was motivated primarily by my desire to be as healthy as possible in case I caught the virus (to avoid the possibility of complications), but it really did serve to reduce my stress, too.
Apart from that, to be honest, I have been way too busy to take on anything new. I am working more than before and up until a couple of weeks ago, I was also dealing with having my kids home 24/7 (and overseeing their remote learning). Not an ideal time to learn a new hobby. 🙂
I’m playing with the idea a shortform diary like Planety or Daylio. I was, in fact, doing very well creating a short form diary which was essentially a list of what I wanted to remember from that day, until my cousin posted about Daylio and then I got to wondering that would be better and what would I do if I switched apps. Could I import things to a new app. What if they stopped supporting it. Could I ever get my data out and then I froze and stopped doing anything because of information paralysis so now I have that going on.
I was in a really good routine of using my elliptical when the pandemic took over. My routine totally changed as my young kids were suddenly at home doing school and understandably needed my presence. But I kept up with it for a long time. Then summer hit and we were active enough in general that I let my routine slide. Fall was virtual school hell. I finally started my routine again, slightly different than before, mid January and I’m so glad I did. This is my thing I’ll be glad I did both at the end of the day and in 10 years because I am taking care of myself and setting an example for my kids. The day to day happy stuff is harder. Not to say I’m not happy, but a lot of my day is spent doing house stuff and supporting the virtual learning that is still going on. I need to work on that one.
I agree, it is hard to figure out what might be satisfying to yourself 10 years from now. I really did not do a good job of seizing the day during this ongoing pandemic…I thought I’d have more time somehow but school and teaching has pretty much been all-consuming since last March. The summer was spent planning for and panicking about the fall. I think I have done a good job with taking time to recover from the days…I am not doing as much work at home because I just need to recharge. So that’s a weird positive-negative.