Thanks to both a family I adore and a profession I love, I tend to have a pretty hectic schedule. My typical day starts with my children waking me up as they get ready for school. This may take the form of them jumping on my bed or the sounds of a distant argument over the last chocolate chip waffle. Either way, I get to send off my loved ones to a day of activity before I begin mine.
I work at the office most days and return home around 6:30 p.m. so I can play and eat with the family. By 9 p.m., my girls and wife are off to bed and I start my night portion of work. This includes catching up on whatever I did not finish during the day, as well as reading and analyzing many of the day’s events via the Internet. By 2 a.m. I’m usually ready to walk our dog, Princess Suzie, and go to bed.
I really like this schedule. It allows for plenty of family time with a healthy dose of me time. The only drawback is that it is a schedule. And as such, it limits one’s observational skills.
Think about it this way: Do you drive home the same route every day? If so, how aware are you of the daily changes that occur? Did you notice that McDonald’s is no longer offering the McRib? Or that the Knox Street Apple store doubled in size? Did you notice that the liquor store went out of business and is now a Darque Tan? If you take a standard route home, you probably miss things like this because you’re in auto-pilot.
The drive to and from work isn’t the only schedule we maintain in our day. In fact, most of our days are filled with mini schedules or routines. How many of you park in the same spot every morning at work? Or walk the same route from the car to the office? Do you grab lunch or workout at the same time every day? At what time do you watch your shows?
You are not alone. Humans are creatures of habit. It creates the illusion of safety and a social contract with others that overrides individual desires for the greater good. For example, we eat at sundown, not whenever Joey is hungry. If we walk home the same way every day, we are less likely to come across unanticipated obstacles.
So why am I writing about schedules you ask? Because this past week my schedule was nonexistent. I had a surgery on Thursday that left me with little ability to do anything but sleep and pray for more pain killers. Well, that’s not totally true, by Sunday I was able to reflect on my weekend of sleep and pain killers. What I noticed was that my lack of schedule was quite unsettling.
First of all, I rediscovered the fact that daytime television sucks! Not a big surprise, but still true. I also noticed that my family’s schedule was unchanged. My girls still went to school, my wife still went to work, and the mailman still delivered the mail. How dare they continue on as if nothing happened!
Anyway, this left me with an abundance of time, as everyone was out, so I wandered around aimlessly rediscovering what my routine left unnoticed. First, thing I noticed was that my girls were working on their mother’s birthday present. (Oh crap. My wife’s birthday is coming up and I almost forgot. Not cool!) Then I noticed that we had a new water cooler on the second floor. (Holy crap. I don’t have to go down to the kitchen for cold water anymore. Cool!)
Upon that revelation, I heard a knock at the door. It was my mother-in-law, with several bags of fresh fruit. Little did I know that this was a daily occurrence. Don’t ask me where I thought the fruit came from, I really never gave it a thought. I was just used to always seeing a bowl of fresh fruit in the kitchen. As far as I was concerned, it was the fruit fairy that stopped by.
Later that day, I realized that my girls were no longer napping during nap time, just resting. I figure I’ll keep that one a secret since once the wife realizes what is going on, my nap time will be cut as well. I also became aware of the fact that my girls have developed a friendship with one of the neighbor kids who is several years older. In fact, my girls play with him and his dog every day on their walk with the nanny. Needless to say, my wanderings turned up many facts I was unaware of, some of import others seemingly benign. Either way, I’ve decided it is time to change things up a bit.
For the next week, I will endeavor to take a different route to and from work each day. I’m going to walk Princess Suzie earlier to see what differences exist between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. And instead of ordering lunch in, I’m finally going to visit one of those food trucks everyone is talking about. Who knows, maybe I’ll even play hooky one day so I can see what goes on at the various construction sites throughout town.
Whatever changes I make are sure to be short lived. As I said at the beginning, I like my schedule. But, for at least this one week, I’ll be opening my eyes to what is going on around me that I normally ignore out of habit. What will you be doing this week?
Caleb Smith is president and owner of Spire Realty Group LP. Contact him at [email protected].
