Another day, another morning.
The alarm on the smartphone goes off and I reach over and turn it off. For the next few minutes, I would linger in a twilight zone of consciousness trying to reach the state of being fully awake, get up, brush my teeth, and head downstairs to the kitchen for my first cup of Earl Gray, and let its aroma bring me back into the world of living.
Some days, however, bringing myself to speed is not easy and today is one of those days.
I just lay in bed unwilling to get up. Wrapped under the cotton sheets, the mind starts to scan through the portfolio of engagements during the day.
To effortlessly slide into the daily routine, I have been advised to have various tricks in the toolbox. If you want to exercise first thing in the morning, go to sleep dressed for exercise. If you want to do some yoga or to meditate for a few minutes in the morning, spread the yoga mat before heading for bed.
Another trick is the notion of parking downhill in the evening so when morning comes, all one needs to do is to let go of the brakes and the car automatically starts to move.
The crux of this trick is to if you are in the middle of writing something the previous night, do not bring it to a finish, instead park the task unfinished and when the morning comes, without a heavy lift, it would be easy to pick up from where you left and get your day going.
The same idea could be generalized to other activities — cleaning or rearranging a room, folding clothes after laundry — leave them half done in the night and pick them up the next day without needing to think about what needs to be done.
Here is a small, but related digression.
I don’t know about you, but it happens quite often to me that in between major tasks during the day if I get a break of 15–30 minutes, it is not trivial to produce something to do. A solution for that is to have a go-to list of small engagements that can be picked up without any conscious effort.
A possibility is to have a saved list of articles one wants to read, and if there is a short stretch of time available, pick one to read.
The secret of well-being, and fulfilling life, is to have a bag of holdings within easy reach filled with creative and engaging activities to draw from.
Even with all those tricks in my toolkit nothing is working this morning. What is needed today is something different to look forward to that will prod me to get out of bed.
Today the mind is looking for something different than the routine to have a rush of dopamine, cheer itself up and bring springiness to the feet. A casual glance through the landscape of engagements during the day draws a blank.
The mind keeps scanning the activities through the day trying to identify a source for a hit of dopamine.
Then it stumbles on something.
The mind remembers reading an email last evening that said that the package I had ordered from Amazon will be delivered sometime today. The memory instantly releases a rush of dopamine and I suddenly feel all perked up ready to get out of bed, face the day, and get on with the usual items in the portfolio of engagements that are laid out for the day.
Praise Lord Amazon. It has once again rescued me and has given me something different to anticipate and look forward to.
The mood brightens and I am heading downstairs for my first cup of Earl Gray.
Ciao.
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