Even if every action you took during the day was part of a positive habit, it couldn’t stay.
The world continues to change around us, as does the culture. There are more people changing than they are not – no matter how hard we try to be in the group of not.
So, those daily habits, those regular positive behaviors may need to shift.
The challenge for any optimizer then isn’t what to replace it with, but how to shape a habit differently to fit the new (soon to be better?) reality.
It happens when we rush, when we take shortcuts, when we talk more than listen and when we maintain ourselves with busy work instead of meaningful work.
It feels like progress – and it is – but not in the direction we may want.
There are two books in my life that were by far the worst books I’ve read to date. They were far below my expectations and I didn’t learn much from either one of them.
Yet, they were part of what got me to where I am today, and today is a good day.
It can be easy to hate on elements of our past and let them sour our present.
It’s far more worth it to appreciate the present, though, and understand the past trials and tribulations were what got us here.
As a kid I would get random pains and aches in my gut or in my knee. They were uncalled for and totally temporary. But I thought I was the only one to experience them so they felt more severe than what they were.
Everyone has inevitable discomforts, though. We all experience odd tweaks and moments of displeasure. We all put ourselves in pickles and tip over pints. We all have odd muscle spasms and headaches we can’t explain.
The best we can do is seek the comfort in the discomfort; in knowing we’re not alone; in understand that someone has felt the discomfort the same as us and made it through. And we can, too.