Diane Birch, Executive Director of BITA, asks ...
What makes you content?
W
e are creatures of habit. This isn’t something that people want to hear, but if we are honest with ourselves it’s mostly true. Is being called a creature of habit, or predictable, just a code for being boring, or is it saving valuable brain space? Our habits take place in a small patch of ground that we’ve cleared for ourselves in our minds and lives. Things may change slightly; perhaps we’ll go for chicken chow mein instead of chicken fried rice tonight, or we’ll grab a drink before going home; but for the most part the things we do are in this same patch of land that we consider safe. Within our patch, we’ll have doctors’ appointments, catching up with friends, the time we set our alarm in the morning and when we go to bed. Some of us may have gym sessions or singing lessons in our patch, others won’t. But the tracking mechanism on google maps (check your timeline!) will usually be quick to show you how little your life deviates from one day, week, month to the next. There is nothing wrong with this, doing something new every day would be exhausting. Trying to consider doing something new can become difficult when
we are tired, and it’s much easier to stick with our tried and true methods instead of risking disappointment. Problems arise when our habits are damaging to us. We are still moving around the same patch of ground, but now there is broken glass everywhere and we don’t realise we need to move on. It’s here that many get stuck, afraid or unable to move, caught in harmful cycles. We all have responsibilities; Gen x and Boomers get a bad press, but we often have children and grandchildren that we care for, as well as elderly parents. We still work, we need wages and are time poor. And the younger generations, struggling to find a permanent full-time job with good pay, are worried about being left short of money and often priced out of homeownership, leaving them in unsecure tenancies or living with their already time-poor parents. Despite, or more likely because of these responsibilities, many of us get home and ‘zone-out’ by watching TV instead of planning meaningful change for our lives. Planning for an extraordinary life takes time and effort. Change takes action. We are always being told to budget our finances, but we need to start
Helping you think differently!
TNORF OT KCAB AND ROUND THE CORNER
FAT
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