What will you do today?
Breaking out of monotony
What will you do today? Chances are if you are not on vacation, you know the answer to that question! Most will know the day is about grinding it at work. The day has a very familiar flavour to it - alarm, some time in the bathroom, breakfast, rushing out the door, scrambling in traffic, and then the juiciest part of the day labouring away at the job. Tomorrow is more of the same. At least our evenings offer some respite. After clamouring in the kitchen cleaning up the day and preparing for supper, we look forward to time around the dinner table with those we love, and maybe a show on Netflix, so we can settle in to another night of tossing and turning in our sleep.
Camus captured this all too clearly, sharing, “Rising, tram, four hours in the office or factory, meal, tram, four hours of work, meal, sleep and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, according to the same rhythm – this path is easily followed most of the time.”
It would seem one never has to ask one's self, “What will I do today?”
Camus, however noted, in terms of “the stage sets” of our life that they can “collapse.” It is at this point the “‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.”
Vacations provide an opportunity for such a “collapse”, a break from the monotony of the grind culture. Of course, we may have planned our days to a degree, but the days are more flexible, less engraved in stone. We find ourselves with more moments of leisure, when instead of “having” to do “that,” we notice “l” can do “this,” or “this,” or “this.”
For me, in this moment that I find myself (specifically, waking for the day in a waterfront cottage along Blue Sea Lake, in Quebec), the “this” that I could do includes having my morning Grey Lady tea in the hot tub, fishing off the dock, reading a book (“Awakening the Buddha Within,” by Lama Surya Das) on a hammock chair, taking pictures of a skittish chipmunk, or …
I love the dot, dot, dot, possibility of this moment. The moment has a sense of mystery. One recognizes in a moment like this, that either a discovery is going to happen or there will be a creative “authoring” of some sort. Just sitting in the question, “What will I do today? What will I do in this moment” — it is exciting!
Yesterday morning, the “this” was enjoying the solitude of the morning in the hot tub. So far the “this” this morning has included a square of Belgium chocolate. Soon, it will be accompanied by some Pure Peppermint tea. The rest of the day is open and “that” feels good.
Possibilities for the day include a family hike, more fishing like yesterday (we caught a small mouth bass), a mountain bike excursion, a short drive for poutine, swimming, or canoeing the lake.
“What will I do today?”
What will you do today?
The question with its possibilities can be just as important, if not more important, than the answer. What we actually end up doing, however, still matters. The choices we make are ultimately revelatory. Our choices reveal our values that then inform us about what matters in life. Having the opportunity to ask one's self what one will do when there is nothing pressing and then discovering one's choices for that moment is the manifestation of freedom. The freedom to create ourselves. That is both exciting and terrifying. In that moment it dawns upon us the we bear a responsibility for our lives. What will we do with that responsibility? What will I do now?
“The die has been cast,” as Julius Caesar would say. I am off for another morning soak in the hot tub to steep myself in a moment of solitude & to sit with myself and watch what thoughts arise in my mind’s eye (—privilege? —a better metaphor for Camus’ ABSURD? —self-care? —ideas for a novel about two pickles named “Sparky”? —etc.). My why?
I never feel so much myself as when I’m in a hot bath.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
And you? What will you do today?
By Steve Quiring, The Hopeful Humanist
soundcarelifecoaching@gmail.com
A draft in process …