The Positive Aspects of Change
Just over a week ago, the country went through one of the most painful rituals we have to endure every year. We all lost an hour of sleep when switching to Daylight Savings Time for no good reason other than “we’ve always done this.”
If, like me, you are not a morning person, loosing this hour of sleep is worse than losing any sum of money. The extra hour we get in November is too far away to make this loss worth the trade-off. Every year, countless people wonder why we go through this, and there really is no good reason.
We’re not an agrarian society any longer, farmers do not make up the majority of the working population, and we’re not in the middle of a world war (at least overtly and depending on your political persuasion).
This painful ritual is only done because it’s what we’ve been doing for decades. As dragged myself out of bed every morning last week, my extra weariness got me thinking, what else do I do just because it’s what I’ve always done?
When we get into ruts, we can easily lose track of why we started doing something in the first place. Once we’ve stopped realizing the purpose of our actions, it becomes much harder to continue to pay attention to if we’re achieving our desired goal or not and it can be next to impossible to realize if or when our actions become counterproductive or start causing more harm than good.
This rut can be something as seemingly small as coming home from work and pounding back a few drinks to relax, but over years, can cause a lot of harm to our bodies and relationships. Or it can be going to a job you hate day in and day out because it’s easier than putting in the effort to find a new one, yet the stress is slowly but consistently raising your blood pressure until you’re at risk for a heart attack or stroke.
Or, it can be staying in a toxic relationship for the sake of the other person or the children, only to end up lashing out at each other in harmful ways with repercussions beyond just the relationship. Because these things start small and progress slowly over time, it can be hard to recognize them without a mindful effort.
Having to deal with events like Daylight Savings Time can be a good reminder that it’s time to take a look at all aspects of our lives and figure out what is no longer working for us. Pay attention to your feelings at different times of the day, if you find yourself feeling down or anxious for no reason, you might want to pay attention to what you’re doing and ask yourself if it’s something you’ve been doing on autopilot for years and if maybe something needs to change. Notice your interactions with other people.
If they leave you feeling drained, bored, guilty, or frustrated, it might be time to ask what they are contributing to your life and make some changes in your approaches to those people. Of course, if you find yourself just feeling stuck, talking with a trained therapist can help to identify what is going on and strategies for dealing with it.
Regardless of how you feel your life is going, I’d encourage you every so often, perhaps every time change, to just take a few moments and see if you can identify if you are doing anything “just because” and give some thought to whether that might be something to start changing in order to have a more fulfilling life.
