One thing that I am grateful for this May is a truly beautiful park day.
Every once in a while, I like to take some time out of my day and do two things:
Take a long walk in a park – people watching, enjoying the sunshine, taking in the kids playing in the playground, the runners, bikers.
Sit down on a park bench with a good book and a beverage
I’ve found over the years, that there’s a good amount of great places in the city to just enjoy the space, and enjoy what the city has to offer. Taking a great book and just reading while other people enjoy the space is a true blessing on a warm summer day.
I often take for granted how accessible and easy it is to just enjoy the outdoors – most often a free, third space. If you’re reading this, take some time to enjoy a great park day! Seven minutes or five hours, it’s still a great way to ensure that you’re feeling connected to the land. Take up some space, and enjoy some shade.
“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
“How’s your day? Great! I went to work, came back home, made dinner and got ready for bed.”
So many people I know are going through this mundane experience of life that comes with growing up and starting careers. Countless “wellness gurus” proclaim the benefit of a good routine, a stable base to build your day (unfortunately I read a lot of self help books last year), but have you ever wondered how uncertainty can help you live a more fulfilling life?
Commuters ascend an escalator in Glen Park, San Francisco.
It’s dawned on me recently that what made school very interesting for me is the ability to be in an environment where learning and self discovery is encouraged. When you’re forced into the “real world”, we take all of this creative time and attempt to anchor our lives towards a stable routine, in this effort to build a similar stable structure that school provided us in our youth. While there’s nothing wrong with a great routine (you should probably go to the gym regularly, or touch grass every day), working some whimsy into your life can provide some great benefits to re-centering discovery and wonder into your life.
How I’m embracing uncertainty and discovery into my life
One of the key ways that I work “awe and wonder” in my life is to set simple, easy goals that work to create discovery in your life. The goals aren’t necessarily meant to be hard to fulfill, but rather blend into your daily life to build whimsy and something interesting. Keep these three principles when creating your goals:
Is it effortless?
Have I done it in the past year? (hopefully no)
Is it short and sweet (1-2 hours at most)?
The goal of these three principles is to ensure that you can incorporate something simple, easy, and novel to you! Easily getting exposed to new ideas is what really makes your life more exciting and more interesting.
Here are some of my goals:
Pick a new drink that you haven’t tried (I mostly stick to the zero sugar sodas, and mostly Coke Zero. Next time that I’m at the store, I’m gonna pick a new soda that I’ve never tried and see if I like it!)
Use my backyard to read or work (idk about y’all but my backyard is not interesting and I never use it… so might as well use it once and see if I like it or not)
Go to a workout class (I already workout so I might as well try a new workout!)
Stroll down a new aisle in the supermarket (see what products are new instead of just sticking to my list!)
One of daily routines (using a trash can when needed)
As you can see, most of these things I already do! But the novel part is implementing my “routine” in a slightly different way, and that exposes me to new things. There’s so many other ways to do this; maybe take a new route to work, or if you already do a workout class, try it at a different location.
Take the privilegeto live live
It’s a privilege to be alive right now, and although it may seem hard in so many different ways, you have the power to ensure that you’re living, not just surviving. This wasn’t meant to be some self-help post, but to encourage others to embrace being silly and in awe. The world is so big and I’d love to learn as much as I can from it while I still have the ability to.
If you’re content with the everyday routine, more power to you! Not everything will work for everyone, and I’m glad it helps you.
I implore anyone who reads this to develop their own four “silly goals” this month, and feel free to share them with me! I’d love to see how being silly makes your life more interesting.
