One thing that travel has taught me is that what you see can be wonderful, but how you see is more important.
One of the hardest things to do upon returning home is to see the old anew. One of the most difficult tasks is breaking the pattern of routine seeing.
Because what could be a more important skill when our landscapes are not always in our control?
You are not what you’ve done in the past. But you are what you do repeatedly.
One of the hardest things to do is to change an ingrained habit, good or bad.
What habits do you have that are not serving you anymore?
Why is being excited to get up in the morning the proxy for a good career/life these days? Don’t get me wrong, I love springing out of bed as much as the next guy. But when “successful” people talk about how happy they are to get out of bed to go to work, they sets unrealistic expectations for the rest of us. Its easy to then draw the simple conclusion that, if you’re not excited to get out of bed, then your life and career sucks.
It’s a dangerous game we play when we equate the transient feelings we have in the early hours of the morning to our worth as a person. I think about enthusiasm the same way I think about passion. Passion is temporary. Its great when it happens but totally unreliable.
I prefer habit. Where passion is fleeting, habit is consistent. Where passion fluctuates, habit stabilizes. Where passion is easy, habit is hard work. Where passion makes us a victim of our circumstances, habit gives us ownership over our lives.
So the next time your alarm goes off and you feel like shit, choose habit over passion. Passion will tell you that you are lazy and unworthy. Habit will get you out of bed regardless of how you feel.
Someone once asked Nobel Prize Laureate William Faulkner if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration.
“I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied.
“Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
The stakes are highest when nobody is watching over your should. The time most important when you don’t have to be there. Make that time count. Make your own inspiration. 🙂
Danyo Pang 