Woke up to Frank Ocean's "Swim Good" this morning at 6:30. I let it play from my phone about two times before I turned it off and actually rose out of my bed at the time I'm scheduled to be at work. I took my damn time today. Usually I'm out of the door at the time I'm scheduled to be at work. I particularly didn't care today, and I feel splendid. To be honest, I did run a couple of stoplights...but it wasn't for the benefit of the company I work for, it was the lack of patience I had for traffic signals. It's small changes in my regular behavior like this that I'm taking notice of which I think highlight my urge to "march to the beat of my own drum", if you will. As far back as I can remember I've always been late for work, school and have had to burden others with helping me get there. Not anymore though. I've been driving for a little more than a year now and it's all been on me.
It feels good for me to walk on the highrope, teeter-tottering between adherence and neglect for punctuality. It's practically a thrill. "Will I get away with it this time? Will I get slapped on the wrist?" I'm a habitual rule-breaker when it comes to being on time. I got plenty of detentions for showing up late to school because I had to take public transportation because I missed the school bus because I woke up too late. Since I was 9 years old, I had to wake up and walk to school in Taipei. I would jump in the shower, go down five flights of stairs, and run down the uneven, narrow roads (so uneven, it seemed that concrete was poured from the top of a hill and then they decided to build apartments next to that) to San Yu Primary. My teacher would often send me downstairs to have my hair blowdried until the habit to dry my hair with a towel before I left my building was cemented into my mind.
So today, I acknowledge that I have some difficulty forming good daily habits. A difficulty which I believe is the cause for me not being able to follow through with goals I set myself up to accomplish only to let myself down later. Setting goals for oneself gives a false sense of direction. The metaphor I regularly think of would be "walking down the right path" to accomplish something. That's working on the assumption that you're on a solid path that will never falter. However, this world is everchanging and when something comes along (and it will) that you never expected, you'll be led astray from your imaginary path and the only place you'll end up is disappointment and self-pity for what you feel to be a failure.
Having done a lot of traveling on my own, I normally go without any plans and a very vague idea of what I want to do yet I end up having a great time with my journey regardless. I stop somewhere I've never been, treat myself to something I've never experienced and I wholly submit myself to the day.
It's much more fun that way when there's no stress of a supposed solid schedule to stick to. This mentality needs to be applied to everything. Just do something if you want to do it- not because you believe you have to or because you need to fill someone else's standards of success.
