Ordinary Days
We spent this week anxiously anticipating the direction and intensity of the strongest hurricane to ever make landfall arriving on the heels of watching the horrific tragedy in Houston with the highest amounts of rainfall in the history of all rainfall. What direction will it go? What strength will it maintain? Should we evacuate? What should we do? Where should we go? Will we be stuck in traffic and run out of gas? What if? What now? I need chocolate; and lots of it. It is times like these that strengthens my faith in God to provide us guidance and direction to keep us safe and away from harm. We are now only to receive a tropical storm and our town wasn't evacuated. We decided to stay home putting our trust in God. Irma is due to arrive here by Monday; these are anything but ordinary days. Right now I truly prefer a quiet simple under appreciated, almost boring, ordinary day. If there ever was a time of seeking serenity, this is it. Eating my way through hurricane stress is not an option so I intend to remain calm in the face of the storm, literally. Think happy calming thoughts. Memories come to mind of long ago that always makes me happy and calms the soul.
My childhood summer was never complete until we got to spend at least one week at my Aunt and Uncle's farm in the middle of nowhere Ohio. It was the real deal with a huge red barn, baby pigs, and nothing but fields as far as the eye could see. It was a gigantic family with 11 kids living there. We could play in the barn after we did the chores. Once the big hogs got out and we were summoned to chase them back into the pens with sticks but most days were not that exciting. Sometimes we would sit around and watch Louie, the youngest son, take apart bicycles, rearrange the parts to get them to work, and put them back together. They were ordinary days. In a time when it feels like life is rushing by I like to think of those slow summer days on the farm from years gone by; Simple ordinary days with no multi-tasking, cell phones, internet, video games, cable TV or pending hurricanes. And it was good. Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life.
This week I realized that ten weeks of faithfully sticking to this plan every single day, I've developed rituals that keep me on track. Rituals become routine over time and quickly become ordinary. The journey to weight loss is full of rituals but they take discipline. Willpower may get you started but willpower doesn’t last. Rituals last a lifetime and will be the key to long term success. Working out, logging calories and planning my food are now rituals for me like brushing my teeth. These are the disciplines necessary to carry out my vision but there are days that it can feel monotonous. The question I ask this week is how do I keep the momentum and stay committed during the ordinary days?
The real question, that perhaps is the answer, is do I want to feel the pain of discipline or the pain of regret? Jim Rohn said, "We must all suffer from one of two pains; the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons." I need to remember why I've held on so long in the first place. I no longer want that familiar dreadful disappointed feeling the morning after completely blowing my healthy eating the night before. Let's face it, falling off the figurative wagon emotionally hurts; the pain of regret is real. I feel that in order to have an extraordinary life you need to appreciate the ordinary things. If you want extraordinary results you have to be willing to do the ordinary things, the routine things, the mundane rituals day by day by day that are producing results.
You know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work.
(James 1:3-4A)
There is something special that happens when we decide to persevere in the face of pain. The diet roller coaster was a painful path of disappointing myself over and over. We are living in a day where we are encouraged to do life based on how we feel, but the problem is that most days we don't feel like doing anything challenging. If I waited until I actually felt like working out, well, we all know the answer to that! We also know that there is no magic diet plan or secret diet pill to make weight loss issues vanish into thin air. Let's face it, if you don't start doing the things you don't feel like doing, you will wake up one year from today and be in exactly the same place. Big things are built one brick at a time. Victories are achieved one choice at a time. The only path to this victory is dedication and hard work day after day after day after day. I am learning to enjoy these ordinary rituals on ordinary days because that is the pathway to peace. There are days when I'm dashing from meeting to meeting with cell phones and laptop in tow that I think back upon a simpler time from years gone by.
Right now I could go for an afternoon of sitting on that swing under the big old tree in front of the red barn watching the hogs in the field. What I wouldn't give to be sitting at the huge dinner table with all of 11 cousins laughing so hard because our sweet Grandma threatened to stick Louie with a fork if he didn't behave.
Sometimes you have to slow down, be patient and let happiness come to you on an ordinary day. And it's coming one ordinary ritual at a time; one ordinary day at a time.
“When I was a little girl, I used to run around in the fields all day, trying unsuccessfully to catch ladybugs. Finally I would get tired and lay down for a nap.
When I awoke, I’d find ladybugs walking all over me.”
~Under the Tuscan Sun~
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