I got asked to play hooky for a day and go to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia with some friends. I’ve never been there! Let me see if I can clear my calendar. It was an automatic response. I like to think that I am up for most new things. Life is amazing and there is so much to see, learn and do that I’m going to be quite ticked off when I die. In 2014, my ‘word of the year’ was ‘new”. I challenged myself to do something new every day. As I did new things, I wrote them down on a scrap of paper and threw them in a jar. At the end of the year I read them all on New Year’s Eve. It was fun to do all that remembering and remarkable how much we actually do ‘new’ all the time without necessarily noting its newness. New might be as memorable as, “I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time.” But a lot of my ‘new’ was ordinary – I ate an anchovy (by dreadful mistake, but it still counted) or I fixed a sink plunger. Wait, that hasn’t actually happened yet – but I do have it planned for today.
I like the notion of being deliberate each day – to decide that I will either do something new or go somewhere new. I know that every weekend I have to do laundry and treat the hot tub – things that have been routine for years and have to get done. And I tend to do them the same way every weekend. But I’ve never filled my washing machine with each piece of clothing a carefully aimed basketball lob. Nor have I treated the hot tub while still in my robe. Neither of these things prove much of anything except that I am alive and not bored for a minute.
OK, I have million things to do with the rest of my day. When I put my head on the pillow at the end of the day I’m sure I will have either gone new places or done new things. It’s a grand life.
I like the notion of being deliberate each day – to decide that I will either do something new or go somewhere new. I know that every weekend I have to do laundry and treat the hot tub – things that have been routine for years and have to get done. And I tend to do them the same way every weekend. But I’ve never filled my washing machine with each piece of clothing a carefully aimed basketball lob. Nor have I treated the hot tub while still in my robe. Neither of these things prove much of anything except that I am alive and not bored for a minute.
OK, I have million things to do with the rest of my day. When I put my head on the pillow at the end of the day I’m sure I will have either gone new places or done new things. It’s a grand life.