Change is Good

The other day I was telling one of my friends about this 30-day experiment I’m doing. She gave me a stare that looked like she was thinking either, “you just grew another head out of your shoulder” or “I’m calling for a straight jacket in a moment.” Verbally, she was a little more polite. “Why would you do that?” she asked.

Don’t be too quick to judge her. Let me first explain that in the initial few days of not doing anything else while I was eating, I got a little cranky. Maybe even more than a little. So I might have even complained to this friend just a bit.

I’ve gotten some quizzical looks from other friends as well, but for a different reason. You married, or somehow significantly-othered, folks might be wondering what the big deal is. People with families don’t do much else besides talk to the other people their eating with while they're dining. But for us singles, dining alone is usually a time when we’d prefer to have a few distractions going on. It keeps us from realizing we’re eating alone.

As I mentioned in my first post, I was typically doing about four or five things while I ate. Hence my surprise to find out that there were some things that I eat that I really don’t like the taste of. Actually it’s more of a texture thing but I’ll spare you the grizzly details. (Pun intended.) I’ve also discovered that I might really be one of those “food is fuel” people. Unless something I’m eating is knock-your-socks-off good, I don’t like paying that much attention to it.

So, back to the original point of this post—and the answer to my friend’s question. Why would I do anything that’s even a little unpleasant by choice? What I replied to my friend was that when I do something that’s hard, I feel good about it when I’m done.  Not an ego-driven, hey-look-at-me-I’m-so-great kind of good. More of a deep-sigh, relaxed kind of good.

And just like any bad habit that is hard to break at the start—or a good habit that's hard to start—you sometimes change your mind at some point and what, at first, was hard becomes easy. Or what was unpleasant becomes your favorite new routine.

Change is good. Embrace it like it’s your best friend.