All habits should be tested once in a while
We moved when I was five years old. Not to a new city or anything, but to another neighborhood. It’s the house to which I refer when I say, “…where I grew up.” I was just there yesterday picking up my mom for an errand. That house is the best.
Our old house was walking distance to where I went to kindergarten, so my sister and I used to walk every morning. Up a hill, never leaving the sidewalk, sometimes cutting through someone’s yard because the hill behind their house was super fun to run down.
We moved in the spring of my kindergarten year so there were a few weeks there when I was in a new house but still attending the old school — no longer a walking commute. Yesterday, my mom and I reminisced about an incident that occurred sometime within those few weeks.
Old habits
School let out and I remember that it was a nice day. Spring had sprung and kids were getting picked up, while others were on their way walking to their respective homes.
My mom and one of her friends (I can’t recall who, but I remember that she wasn’t alone), came to pick me up from school in my mom’s car. It was a maroon Oldsmobile and I seriously can’t recall a time that it didn’t smell kind of weird in the backseat. It’s one of those distinct scents which — if I smelled it right now — would immediately transport me back in time into that backseat.
As she tells it, she drove around the circle a few times looking for me. Then, when a few minutes went by and she couldn’t wait any more, she got out and looked around. She saw a family friend picking up their kid, a classmate of mine, and asked if they had seen me.
“Oh yeah, sure. I saw him walking up that way,” they said, pointing up the sidewalk and around the fence.
My mom chuckled to herself and knew exactly where I was.
They pulled up to our old house and yep, there I was. Sitting there on the front porch with my fresh to death bowl cut and tube socks pulled all the way up to the knee. Just hanging out, slowly realizing that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, but also knowing that Mom will figure it out so I just better stay put.
We are creatures of habit
Which is why change can not only be difficult to accept, but also hard to actually implement.
But when change is made out of necessity, with the intent to improve, then it can eventually lead to new ways. New habits.
And then, someday, you’ll look back at the old way and smile…and maybe blog about it.
Change for change’s sake is sometimes ok, too
Giving “a new way” a chance to simply become “the way,” is where you grow and where you learn. Not everything works, but just the willingness to explore new things is critical to development.
Every time you take a chance, you’re actually giving yourself that important opportunity.
Ok ok, I know it’s not always going to work and not all change is for the better — but the intent to want to change in order to improve whatever you’re doing is more than enough. I think that’s what we’re talking about here.
They say (quick side note: has anyone figured out who exactly “they” are yet? No? Dang.) that if ain’t broke, then don’t fix it. Hmm…I’m not so sure.
If it ain’t broke, then maybe it’s built well…but that doesn’t mean it’s always going to be the best way.
Little or big
What will you change today? It can be anything of any size. New toothpaste? Switch to green tea? Refresh your website content and photos? Sketch out a new logo or maybe change your social media strategy?
Changing habits may not give you the answers, but it at least opens you up to actively searching for them. That’s half of it.
For the record, it’s ok to occasionally go back to your old habits, too. Old can be new again.
Even if you don’t live there anymore.
#bewhatyoumake
