Routines love me right back.
I love not having to think about what I'm doing next. There's a comfort and a security in doing the same thing day after day. Get up, get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair, pack bag, head off to the coffee shop, work on stuff, head home, have breakfast. It's a simple routine, but I don't have to waste brain power overthinking things. And that makes it easier. No effort. No dithering. Just follow the routine.
And yet... as the years go by... things get... well... boring. We go to the same restaurants. We order the same things (beef dip, please!). We see the same people. Hike the same routes on the same trails. Every day starts to look like the last, and the days blur together and... well... it's boring.
There are days I can almost run the whole thing on autopilot. Same parking spot. Same order. Same table, if it's free. I know what I'm going to say before I even open my mouth. I know what the barista is going to ask. There’s something efficient about it… and something just a little bit numbing. But the idea of doing something different just feels like too much.
I read something the other month that got me thinking. Why is it that when we are young, time seems to crawl by? It takes forever to go from 5 years old to 10 years old. Yet, when we are in our 50s and beyond, five years can pass in the blink of an eye. Not to mention a whole week, or day, or afternoon. "Where does the time go?" we say, perplexed by it all. Has time sped up? Have we slowed down?
And yet... when we go on a two-night getaway to Vancouver, or Cumberland, or Victoria, we come back amazed at how those two days expanded and felt like a week. We were only gone two nights, and yet it felt longer.
And there is the rub... "it felt like"... time is subjective. When every day looks like the one before it—and the one after—time feels like it’s passing quickly. There’s nothing to differentiate the days. But when we go away, even for a day or two, we have new experiences. We stay somewhere different, eat somewhere new, hike new trails, visit new shops. All of those “new” experiences slow time down and make it feel like it’s passing more slowly.
So while the same old, same old is good for conserving brain energy... it also makes time speed up. And new, novel experiences slow it down.
All this leads to... 2026. I had a milestone birthday a few months ago—one that made me stop and think. Do I want to keep doing the same old, same old? Or do I want to try something different?
I had read a book a few years ago called 50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life. The author, realizing at the age of 50 that she was on the downward slope of life, committed to doing 50 new things—significant, at least to her. That book stuck with me, and I started to think... what would I put on a list like that?
And so when this last birthday came around... I decided to bite the bullet and do 60 new things in 2026. Whatever that might look like for me. Step out of my comfort zone. Go to different places. Hike different trails. Visit new restaurants.
Because while I love routine... I also find it ties me down.
It stifles me.
But I can change that... one small step at a time.
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