Vitamins every day. Workout five days a week. Call your (insert random family member here) every week. Morning/Evening/Sunday routine. Married by 30 (lol). Kids by 32 (LOL). Is your life one big checklist or one huge list made up of more little lists? STOP IT.
Most people only realize this when they have a traumatic experience, which I guess 2019 was for me, but your life cannot be a checklist. It’s great that you have routines: here’s my after work routine, but you don’t want your routine to mean you’re not taking the time to appreciate the little moments.
Maybe the next time you take your vitamins every morning you can think about how pretty the sunrise is or how cute your dog looks snuggled in bed. The next time you make your bed spritz little lavender on the sheets to give your evening routine a little kick. Tomorrow when you drink your coffee instead of running around with it, listen to the morning around you instead of the news.
To Do Lists vs Life Checklist
To-do lists are great, I live by my to-do lists, I run my day by my to-do lists, but I can’t run my life by a checklist. It’s nice to have an idea of where you might like your life to go or a five year plan with goals to work towards but it shouldn’t run your life.
There’s a difference between a to-do list for the day and a life checklist. Make sure if you’re checking things off a list it’s the former and not the latter.
Degree. Career. Married. House. Kids.
Lol.
It’s more like degree, another degree, two dogs, career, and currently living with a parent.
I thought I would be married by now but I left a candle burning last night, couldn’t remember to turn up the air conditioning without my Nest, and have killed at least 37 plants in my life. How do people just suddenly have their lives together when they pop out a kid? Is that a mom thing?
It really is the journey not the destination
In 2016 I went to Scotland and England with a friend. We finished our trip by seeing HP & the Cursed Child in London and it almost got cancelled by a blackout but that’s another story for another day.
I had the trip all planned, we rented a car and I knew how long it would take us to get to each place from the previous night’s abode. My travel partner had other plans, we made multiple stops and random points along the road. We pulled over and took pictures when we thought a snow covered field looked cool. We pulled in to a center that was having a sale. This was a woolen mill, specialty grocery store, restaurant, and Scotland upscale trinket station all in one. It was honestly spectacular and one of the highlights of our trip. The catch? I would never have experienced it if I had stuck to my plan, to my list, get to y from x.
Don’t be afraid to deviate from your life checklist. Think of it more as guidelines than actual rules…
