Just because we paid for a movie and started watching it doesn’t mean we also need to stay all the way through if it’s not that great. We’ve already paid. We’ve already lost some time. We can choose to keep what we have left—and do something more enjoyable and rewarding with it—or we can lose even more.
Just because we have seven books in progress, each one picked for its own reason, in the hopes of helping us reach a particular aim (laughter, understanding, self-improvement, relaxation), doesn’t mean we need to read even a single word more if we’ve already gotten what we think we can out of them, or if we’re simply ready for something else.
Just because we got here by doing X and then Y and then Z, Z, Z, and more Z doesn’t mean we can’t wake up tomorrow and try out Q, just to see how it goes. Doesn’t mean we can’t deliberately choose not-Z, and still reasonably expect our little nooks to keep revolving on the surface of the earth.
Every day, we wake up in our particular homes, in our particular beds, with our particular dimmable alarm clocks and half-empty tissue boxes and toothpaste-stained sinks… in part because of our past decisions.
We’re surrounded by our particular selection of baby carrots and nut butters and olive oils and dates, our particular selection of literature and psychology books, and our particular piles of reminders to do the laundry and renew that membership but cancel the other one, and our particular partners or relatives or roommates or neighbors… in part because of our past decisions.
We have the roles we play in our own lives and in those of others, the routines we follow, the exercises we do (or ignore, leaving the equipment cozily in the closet)… in part because of our past decisions.
And when we feel like it really would be lovely for some things to look different, all those past choices and circumstances and the expectations we have, the expectations of our people, and frankly even of those of our groceries and clothes and beds (waving at us from across the room) can make it feel like change is not available to us.
So maybe tomorrow isn’t a totally clean slate. Maybe we’ve already covered most of it with plans. But if there’s even just a corner open, maybe we can start with a new sort of doodle. With a first or second or twenty-seventh step toward something that suits us better.
With a little not-Z.
Now to remember this in the morning.
This Glass Has Water 