Catherine Rutland explains the importance of change in our lives.
As we continue through this lockdown, many people have said that it feels a little like Groundhog Day. The days run one into another, and the weekends almost just fill in the gaps between workdays.
To combat this, I try to alter something to make each day a little different, such as changing my dog walking route, trying a new recipe, or even a different pair of jogging bottoms! A little while ago we had a flurry of snow, and we haven’t had any here for almost two years. It may not have been much, but it was so exciting. It was the first time my dog had ever seen snow and it was truly joyous to watch her trying to understand what it was. I knew it wouldn’t last long and I was determined to make the absolute most of a day that was different.
My 21-year-old daughter had been warned the night before that if it did start to snow early morning, we would be up and out to enjoy it before it was spoilt. As the snow started to fall just before dawn, it was wonderful to sit and watch and feel excited about the prospect of a walk in it. I realised that I had not been really excited for some time.
The positive moments in life may not last long, so you have to savour them. The snow certainly gave us that opportunity.
The other day I was listening to a webinar about minimising life’s excesses and thinking about what is really important to us. I have written before about the concept of essentialism, and this webinar touched on it and caused me to reflect. For all of us over the last year, our lives have been forced to become simpler, and many of us have actually appreciated some of the outcomes.
I know many people who have decluttered sheds, wardrobes and kitchen cupboards over the last year. Whilst doing this can really make a difference to our daily lives, we also need to think about how we can declutter our thoughts and actions.
Thoughts are always the priority for me to tackle. I am such an overthinker that creating quiet and peace internally can sometimes be a little challenging. Letting go and decluttering my brain is something I have really worked hard on over the last year, and it has given me space to think about and focus on what is truly important to me.
These last 12 months have been so tough in so many ways, however this change in the pace of life has been positive for so many people. I suppose the question will be whether it is maintained; will we let the clutter back in to our lives and therefore lose that focus on what is important?
Our health, family, and absence of fear are some of the things that have become really important over this time. Of course, they have always been important to us, just a little buried in our previous pace of life, only surfacing when something untoward happened. How do we make sure they stay on the surface?
As more people are vaccinated and there seems to be a little light at the end of the tunnel, it seems prudent to reflect on this whilst we have a little more time and are able to. That way, when life gets a little more open, we can still be prepared to focus on those things that are important to us.
For us, that morning walk in the snow meant so much. It made us smile, the dog made us laugh and it made us feel different and so appreciative of a little change in the weather. When it is unspoilt, snow is the ultimate declutter metaphor. The world is smooth and bright as it lies over everything. Added to that, it showed us emotions we hadn’t felt for a little while and that cosy, comforting feeling when we got home. So, it was definitely not a Groundhog Day!