#reverb15 // Day 13 // Monotony

I'm joining pals Sarah and Elizabeth to write every day in the month of December, feel free to join in any time! Today's prompt: Monotony. Sometimes life is boring. Everyday we do chores, run errands, work, drive, etc… It’s not always exciting. How did you deal with boredom and monotony in 2015?

I've always been just fine on a routine. Autopilot, as my previous posts on habits called it. I learned at a very early age to self soothe and to be patient. So, unless I'm late to meet someone or teach a class, I have nerves of steel. I also don't feel that I am easily bored. I think a lot, as introverts do, privately and meandering among all the little things that must be done in life. So, I would say that I am a rare breed that likes the mundane- it allows me to focus intensely on what is going on inside my head.

Now, I can say this with ease because I am child-free and don't surround myself with high maintenance friends or family who need a lot of my attention. Except Levi, but he doesn't talk, so we're cool. My attention cannot be divided. If G wants to talk about something, I have to physically mute the TV or turn the radio off in the car so that I can processes what she is saying. Even if I'm not paying attention to anything that is happening around me except for her, I cannot hear her for the other obtrusive noises clanging around me. That is how sensitive my single-tasking brain is.

This is good though, for my friends, because anytime they get my attention, they get ALL of it. It's good for my group X classes, because they get ALL of my energy. It's good for my employees, they get my fully engaged problem solving brain. Everyone wins.

Even though I thrive on change and love to ditch bad habits in favor of good ones, the routine of my weekly gym schedule, places I drive, errands I run, work I do, walks with Levi I take, make my life so easy and uncomplicated so that I can intensely focus on my inner random thoughts, solving problems, and assessing my own feelings about situations occurring in my life which that takes a lot of mental head space for me.

I love ordinary and simple. I don't need a lot of excitement in my life, but what this Sagittarius does need is freedom. I'm not completely invulnerable to monotony... when the routine becomes dull, as much as I can appreciate dullness, I can change it anytime I like. Especially if I feel like a routine is being imposed on me from an external force. I rebel against anything that isn't negotiable. I felt very stifled in my previous life, under my parents' thumb and in the highly regimented life my ex-husband led, because I didn't know this about myself. I don't know how that is possible now, as it is one of the defining features of my personality. I remember thinking to myself that I what I was doing was because I didn't have any choice. I accepted it and moved on.

But I would trade excitement for freedom any day. And I did, in a big life changing way. When you have the freedom to choose any path, you can still choose the monotonous and be so incredibly happy in it. Freedom is the ultimate monotony killer.

#Reflect #reverb15