Though
there are self-care practitioners, influencers and life coach who practice and
encourage people to practice self-care, we don’t practice it ourselves until
there is a severe push or introspection. The precursor to start a habit is
always our own willingness to practice it. We should fully be consumed with the
idea to be able to produce it in full force. You must have heard buy first, pay
later. Here also you need to buy the idea of the habit first but the difference
is once the habit is formed and sustains in your routine, you are getting paid
by its multi-fold benefits.
My cousin
and I had a conversation just recently when he was in India. A chance question
sent me on the lane of introspection. I was absently gazing at nothingness when
he asked me mainly because I was not able to produce a suitable reply. Firstly,
I stared in disbelief for the question was unusual and secondly that made me go
inward to seek answer and put forth as a justified reply.
A simple
question it was - “How do you chill?” Since often times we dwell on our busy
rigmarole, we hardly pay attention to the joy element that is so crucial part
of our day. We do not plan on investing few minutes for it but whine about not
getting enough time for it. Our lamentations reverbrate on every meetup we do
with our friends over happy hours.
As much as
we love to talk about our busy schedules and unending deadlines and also pay
heed to other’s tremors of everyday routine, we despise people taking time away
from their hectic schedules to tend to the invisible wounds and scars that this
hectic life casts. We smirk on seeing people hanging out with their friends on
weekdays, walking or exercising on a park, catching up on a music concert on a
Monday or just sitting with a book on their balcony. We belittle their lives
and take pride on the workhorse that we have become. Do not be surprised. We
all have that person in us who constantly sends reminders to complete
deadlines, contributes a little extra in office meetings, and drowns in work
environment even on weekends. As charged, I am guilty. I, too, have that person
within me who has recently become a significant part of me. So when that
question was posed to me, I did some introspection.
And
coincidentally, I chanced upon a newsletter of an influencer and a noted chef
and nutrition expert. Her newsletter always gave me reasons to smile and she
kept the tone so lighthearted and easy that 45 seconds into it, she had your
full attention.
Schedule
joy was her headline and she had listed the activities that gave her joy. We
all like to fill our calendars with office meeting, presentation time, school
ptm schedules, and other million crucial aspects of our life. Have we scheduled
joy anytime? Sounds too vain, isn’t it? There are no plausible reasons one
could gather that could justify to fill calendar with such trifling thing. The
joy that we do not place in our calendar yet that is the important thing we
chase. We have prioritised it throughout our lives, but only to be experienced
in the future. Do we make time for happiness? We do, indeed. However, in the
future.
Instead of
putting it out there as a phenomenon or an enigma, or a force to be reckoned only
tomorrow, why not insert it in our daily routine. And that exactly I exercised
which became my answer to my cousin’s question. I scheduled one fun activity in
my everyday calendar. I took time consciously for it and dipped myself to
heart’s content. Sometime it was 10 minutes-walk with my daughter. Sometimes
just reading few pages from the book or sometimes listening to the music in
loop.
And, for
the past month, I've felt sane amidst the daily rigmarole thanks to this
rejuvenating microbreak in my daily routine.
Summing
up…
Some days
make you cow down to their demands, while others shrink under your steely gaze,
and that's okay; that's exactly how life will be. What you can do is schedule
little fun elements in your calendar and sprinkle them throughout your hectic
schedule to keep the flow and your mental health in check.
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