Little Things

How many books have I read in hopes of learning, once and for all, how to find the zen in my everyday routine? Too many. How many times have I written or said aloud that it's "the little things in life I most enjoy."? Lies! Although, it would be worth my while to appreciate the everyday more, as "everyday" stretches dully before me like a road trip through Kansas. These days I might say, "I'm doing things that my coworkers like to do so that we can talk about it later, at work," or "I tried a new recipe and this one doesn't have yogurt," or "I started drinking a non caffeinated beverage that convincingly mimics the caffeinated beverage it is designed to replace." These conversation starters (enders?) are accurate reflections of the dullness that has spread through my life like a malignancy. My life has been boring for so long, I would think I might be used to it by now. Even when I look back on times that I considered to be exciting, like my freshman year at college, a good percentage of the so-called excitement came from pre-planned "antics" at the dining hall and getting to run errands without my mom. Things aren't actually bad. The trick is to recognize that boring can be good, and recognize it before I take a wrecking ball to all of my hard-won comforts in a misguided effort to pepper my life with "excitement." I know my own patterns well enough to know that after enough time has gone by, I'll look back on this time with bittersweet longing-- this time when I lamented my boredom. I'll think it was a time of simple pleasures--and isn't it the little things in life I most enjoy?