Habit Experiments

A few years ago I spent 8 days just off Vancouver Island, British Columbia with my family; paddling kayaks, watching orcas, seeing bear eat crab, and sniffing drifting wood smoke.

My sister and brother-in-law came along on our adventure and they both said, at different times, "We would never think to do something like this." We watched these harried city dwellers find the burnishing pleasure of the outdoors; that moment when your shoulders drop and you settle back into yourself with a sigh, sloughing off with each paddle stroke what you no longer need...like the orcas rubbing barnacles off on the gravel shore. Oh yes, they loved it out there.

Switch back to the city…

A friend takes me to an opera. I don't like opera. I go because I like her. Sitting in the darkness, voices entwine my heart, something breaks free in my belly and careens out, showering my body in goose bumps. A new me opens because of what is happening up on that stage.

But Sam I am, I don't like opera. Not in the dark, not in a train, not in the rain.

Here is what I believe: Life is an enormous pu-pu platter, a giant offering of possibilities, and it is up to us to keep sampling the delicious tidbits until we find the ones that make us dance on the table with satisfaction and exultation.

I keep thinking, "What if Beethoven had never encountered a piano?" and "What if I never found out I was gluten intolerant?" Go ahead and shake your heads at this giant incongruity but this is the range of experimentation we need. It isn't just the big things we need to experiment with but (like our life's calling), the little details are equally important, things like the finding the best walking shoes or the right amount of sleep.

How easily we can assume that we are just a particular way or that we are sentenced to live a certain way, forgetting that we can shuffle the deck, juggle the balls, switch horses mid-stream. How often do we give up on ourselves (or another human being) assuming we have tried everything when the next combination or new possibility is just waiting for us to see it?

Habits can ensnare us in a straitjacket of comfort, reassuring us that we know what we like, we know who we are. It isn't that we just need to "stay open" or "try new things". It is much more critical than that. We need to keep discovering, until the day we die, all the possible ways to do and to be.

Each day ask yourself, "What can I do today that I've never done before?" and "What one thing could I do differently today?"

AND / OR

Ask yourself, "What area of my life feels most comfortable and settled nand familiar?" Do that part of your life differently, even the slightest bit.

AND

Each week, schedule an hour or two for an adventure date. You might experiment Sunday morning with eating miso soup and fish for breakfast to see how that makes you feel for the day. You might try working the night shift so you can paint in the afternoon light. You might try lifting weights instead of running. You might sleep on the other side of the bed.

Who knows what you might be moved to do?

Keep a running list of your experiments. All scientists do. n