What I learned from showering naked for the last 30 years

Hello void,

I have been thinking lately about the fact that I think a lot, but don't do shit. I want to read, code, learn French, ride my bike, watch more movies, hang out with people more, play games, clean up, cook new dishes or, dunno, try out something new, but I never get to it. Some of it makes sense, like being sick or the weather being insanely hot, but the reason why I don't do anything is mostly because I just feel meeeeh or overstimulated or understimulated. It might be ADHD too. I don't think I am depressed. 

Anyway, I remember reading somewhere that changes come with an identity shift. You are doing something new that is not part of your identity, so you could try to assume your identity already in order to accommodate your new behavior instead of hoping the behavior will stick and change your identity.

My plan is pretty much to fake it until I make it. Every Sunday I will be deciding on what "my identity" will be for the following week and I will try to live it the best I can. The thing is, I do not want to go extreme. This is not supposed to be an extremist go big or go home situation. It is more of a project situation where you can approach it in different ways and tackle different aspects of it depending on what you feel like. 

The idea is to keep the focus of whatever I want to do that week. I won't pretend I am an athlete who already knows what to eat, is used to it, and can work out for hours every day. If I wanted to be more physically active, I would just think of what I could do to achieve that. I could spend my entire week reading about it or I could just not buy groceries for the week and go to the store every day. The stores are like 5 minutes away. One day I may feel super motivated and walk 10k steps. Who knows?

Why I think this might work:

1. If I am bored, I can just ask what my identity would do. (yes, I did think of titling this post "What would Jesus do?")
2. It feels exciting because I am pretending to be someone else, like a spy or some shit. 
3. It feels official. I am not just trying to read a lot now because it would be nice, but because that is who I am now!!! Yeah! A bookworm! You have no idea who you are messing with, boy! Anyway...
4. I suppose this is more of a focus shift, something like the Italian week at Lidl or Aldi or whatever supermarket of your choice. Everything is normal, but with a focus on a certain topic. 
5. Worst case scenario, I can just do something else next week. 
6. Bonus points: I can just talk about it on the blog or write down notes, making it into a real project and maybe one week pick up right where I left off. 
7. The idea is not really progress, but to do shit. Even if I do 52 different things and get nowhere in any of my goals... at least I did shit. I did 52 different things during the year. Yay to me!

The more I read what I wrote, the more adhd-like it seems. I need a plan to do shit I genuinely enjoy... like what? 

Anyway, since I may be doing different shit every week, I thought this sounded like one of those videos where people are like  "I only took cold showers for a year" or "I lived without my phone for a month" which is why I chose this title lol.

So yeah void, you are screwed because you just messed with someone who reads for fun now! That's what I will be doing this week. I even have a physical magazine ready to go for when I feel meh!

P.S. I once told myself that "I am a person whose kitchen sink is always clean." and I actually peer-preassured myself into cleaning the damn kitchen sink before going to bed, so it sort of works lol. 

Stuck in your patterns explained better.. hopefully

Hi!

I just came from my vacation in Norway and Denmark and I have been thinking about my last post. I tried to express the idea that I believe that we can get stuck in our own routines, rituals and thinking patterns that there is probably no way out until you happen upon someone or something that slowly influences you until you become a different person. After writing and rewriting that post for two hours, I think I still did not manage to capture what I had in mind, so I am going to try again.

What I have been trying to describe is the awareness that comes from a break from your routine. It can come from either going on vacation, hanging out with someone or just having a cold and thinking about how good you had it when you were able to breathe. It can also be the moment when you realize you can use your kitchen table to fold laundry on it instead of breaking your back on the floor or bed like you have been doing for the last two years. It can be the moment when you realize you can have chicken nuggets with fries for dinner or just skip it entirely. It can be the moment when you do the most random things that you normally wouldn't do. 

My question is... how do we get more of these moments and especially ones that change us long term? For instance, how does someone go from worrying about keeping their home perfectly clean all the time to realizing that they don't need to? How does one go from having a messy home to realizing that they can keep a home clean, but it takes time to learn how to do it and build routines and that it is okay to take it slowly? How does one go from hating the idea of biking because they cannot ride a bike to realizing it is never too late to learn to ride a bike and enjoy it? 

In my previous post I said that we would need to be consistently surrounded by people with different lives than us until we get influenced into a new direction. I still believe that that may be the fastest way of achieving this, but I now also believe that being on the look out for inspiration, trying out new things just for the sake of it and maybe questioning the things that cause us distress may at least point us into the right direction.