"The only true voyage would be not to travel through a hundred different lands with the same pair of eyes, but to see the same land through a hundred different pairs of eyes. "
- Marcel Proust
We spend a lot of time focusing on the quest for new ideas and new experiences. We read, write, listen, and watch countless hours of content all in the name of exploring unknown places and ideas. Our stories focus on the undiscovered and the rediscovered after many years. In more mundane fashion, we find ourselves always looking ahead to the next vacation, next job, or even simply what the weekend has to offer.
It's much more rare that we settle our minds and find ourselves truly in the present. For as much time as we spend thinking about the unknown, a majority of our life is about the known. Think about how many things you do every single day in pretty much the exact same way. It's everything from what you have for breakfast to the route you take to work in the morning to the order of operations when you get ready for bed at night. We are creatures of habit, and as we repeat something more and more often, it becomes increasingly comfortable and mindless. Unfortunately, when that happens, we end up missing the everyday opportunities to discover something new. The images, ideas, and experiences are right there in front of us but we don't see them because we have so efficiently blocked out everything that doesn't fit the script we've written for ourselves.
Often, it's not until a new variable is introduced that we realize what we might have been missing right in front of our faces. I'm willing to bet that most of you have had the "I never even knew this was here" moment while visiting a new attraction, park, or restaurant with a friend who is visiting. It was only because they did the investigating with fresh eyes that you were open to something incredible five minutes from your house!
There are countless narratives about being "stuck in a rut" in some way, shape, or form, and we all identify with them. Typically, these stories lead to a climactic moment of profound change and explore the challenges faced by those impacted by the change. What would happen if, instead of waiting for some profound epiphany, we simply started to reconsider our everyday experiences?
Try taking a different route to work. Resist checking your email for the first two hours of the day. Walk to a restaurant instead of driving. Sit in a new chair in your Livingroom and see what you notice about your environment. Turn the radio off during your commute and try to identify five things along your route that you've never noticed before.
Whatever you reconsider, you'll be more fully tapping into the infinite complexity of the world around us. Our senses already limit what we're able to observe and experience. Let's not let our habits narrow our focus further and cut us off from new experiences and new ideas. Reconsider your everyday.