Habits of a lifetime means a lifetime of painting the same damn picture everyday

Are you happy in your habits? Are they like a comfortable pair of slippers you wear and are afraid to throw away? Or are you not unhappy enough to change any of them? Do they serve your current needs and requirements?

The good thing about some habits is you don’t have to think too deeply about them. It allows us to listen to the radio whilst we are driving. Or iron our clothes whilst watching the television. We run on auto pilot, and only jolt ourselves when we hit a patch of turbulence. But we know that things will even themselves out again and we will be able to get back to coasting through our lives.

Imagine that every day you are given a blank canvas on which to work. We have the opportunity to create a dazzling day, filled with colour and vibrancy.

Unfortunately, some people can't be bothered to fetch the clean canvas, they haul out the same one, and re-paint the same lines. It's easier you see. They may change one or two colours - but day after day, they paint the same picture.

Can you imagine getting to the end of your life and having to walk down a corridor with your daily paintings hanging on the walls? How scary would it be to see the same thing? Row upon row of the same picture, an endless stream of monotony, interspersed occasionally with the odd picture that stands out, a day that was “special” in some way.

You pause for a moment, to reflect, but then as you return to the walk down the corridor the paintings return to the same themes again and again. You stop and try to go back to that picture you saw earlier, but it’s no longer there. You have to keep walking, past picture after picture of drudgery.

Now imagine what it would be like to walk down a corridor where the walls are lined with vibrancy. You would walk quickly towards the next one, to see what new and exciting things you had done. You would smile, you would frown, and you would remember the happy times, the sad times, and the days of pure bliss. Each day the painting was filled with something different.

The question is what would your paintings look like? Would they be filled with the same kinds of images day after day, or would your pictures be filled with lots of different things and memories?

We all have the same amount of time each day, each and every one of us. We are all given a block of time that we can spend in any way that we want, with a few exceptions. 

It is quite a simple equation:

24 hours; take away the time that you are sleeping; Take away the time that you spend getting ready to go to work, traveling to and from work and the hours you are at work. And what have you got left? The answer is not very much.

Still not convinced? I’ll let you do your own math!

24 hours minus time asleep minus getting ready for work, traveling to and from work, plus time spent at work. Take away dinner preparation time, eating, supervising homework, dishes and housework which leaves how long exactly to do what you really want to do?

So in order to paint a different picture each and every day takes some planning, and yes some creativity, which is why people return to the same canvas. They don't have to think about it. They may spend 50 weeks of the year doing the same thing, saving enough money to go somewhere on holiday - to do the same things in a different place. But don't let that be you. Use bold colours, bold strokes and make a difference to the way your own lives turn out. The beauty of this is - when others see you having a good day, with a smile on your face, they will stop and some will return that smile, and you may unknowingly make someone elses day.
 
So isn’t it time you painted a different picture every day?