Firsts

So, I've been thinking about this one for a while. A thought occurred to me while I was driving back home from the office, and I wanted to pen it down. Two weeks ago. And I didn't. Why? As I got home, I got busy with other routine tasks; making dinner, working on my garden, playing AoE, and writing the blog took a backseat.

However, recently, I had a couple of sessions with a therapist. Partly because I've always wondered how that works and partly because my new employer offers some sessions as a free benefit. After two sessions, I feel that the experience is slightly underwhelming - I've found it an excellent place to open up and talk without reservations, but there are some small things that could've made for a better experience which I'm not gonna talk about, in this blog. Getting back to the first digression - One of the things she said in the latest session - "When it feels that there are things bottled up, give them an outlet, write it down." - stuck with me. That, for me, for a lot of years, had been this blog. This is where I would come and pen down my thoughts without hesitation, without thinking about who's reading, without a care in the world. And so here I am today.

Now, getting back to the original topic and the thought from two weeks ago.

Firsts.

We spend the majority of our life in schedules, routines. Work to home, home to work. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at specific times. Working Monday to Friday(for IT). Yet, that's not what we look forward to. That's never our focus. That's not what makes us happy. In fact, that's not what we even look backward to. That's not what we reminisce about. We don't go, "Oh! Do you remember that 70th day when we went to the same place for lunch, and nothing different happened? We ate, talked casually, and came back to the office?" Because we have a tendency to brush past the monotonous, barely paying any attention to it. What we look forward to, or remember, mostly are the firsts. The first kiss, the first time your heart jumped after seeing a beautiful girl, the first paycheck, the first trip somewhere. Some may generalize and say we look forward to our vacation every year when we go to the same place and do the same things. But do you really? Do you not crave going to a different place, even though that feeling of your comfort bubble draws you to the same place? And then, do you not, during your 5th or 7th visit, go, wait, I don't think it was like this earlier. It used to be better. This restaurant used to serve better food, and this beach used to be more clean.

So where am I heading with all this? This behavior shows that we all crave change in our life. Change is what makes our life better. Change is what makes our life worth remembering. We would remember the first time going to a specific office building and loving it. We won't remember the 1072nd time when we visited the same building since you've been desensitized towards the beauty of the building, which hasn't changed. You have changed in those 1072 visits. Law of diminishing value. What excited you the first time doesn't excite you anymore. However, if you switch employers or locations and go to a new building, it's a second that's also a first, and you may feel excited about it.

Even when most of us maintain, "We don't like change - why can't it be how it was?" We all crave it. The "Why can't it be how it was?" is because it's the nth time something is happening. And at the end of it all, when you look back, you will remember the times something changed. You won't remember all the days the stock market ticked up 1%. But you'll remember that one time AMC & GameStop surged coz of Reddit investors. We are good at remembering anomalies much more than mundane ones. And so, my thought is that for a life worth remembering, you oughta have enough anomalies in it so you can reflect back on it and say - "You remember that time when.."