Deep Thoughts: What Lies Beyond The Norm

Oh, what a discovery! There is a whole wealth of epic awesomeness outside the norm. By norm I mean our daily routines and I can tell you this because I experienced just a wee drop of it this week.

The day began just like every other day. Usually, I always left the house at the same time, took the same bus and spent the same amount of fare daily, at least most of the time with little discrepancies here and there. I would take a bike or a tricycle to my first bus stop; maybe walk a bit to find a cheaper fare; all the while checking the time to make sure I would arrive at my second bus stop in time to get a cheap fare. But on this day I found myself doing something entirely different throwing caution to the wind. I ditched the bike/tricycle option and hopped on a bus taking an entirely different route to my destination.

The first thing I noticed was the weird sound of the bus but before I could make the decision to leave, the bus moved and I settled in for the trip praying and hoping I did not make a mistake. Oh no I had made a mistake, the bus driver not only took a detour to pick up a special royal passenger worth more than our precious time – to my bemusement – the bus literally quenched as soon as the queen bee entered.

I was filled with dread and most likely reprimanded myself a thousand times for making such an insane decision; running through miles of whys, whats, and had-I-knows. What was driving me to make insane decisions this particular morning? We had no choice but to walk back to the bus stop and once again without careful thought I jumped into a bus that gave me a hell of a ride. Initially, I became anxious as I glanced at the time thinking of how long it would take the bus to get filled.

But my worry didn’t last so long as I was swept off by the speed of the bus wherein amazingly we were only two passengers, and I even got to pay the smallest fare ever. Coupled with all the things I learned from conversing with the driver and the other passenger and discovering the exciting buzz of rush hour I have to say it was the most exciting trip to work I had ever made. The most surprising thing is I got to work only a few minutes later than my usual time and every lost minute was worth it. Looking back to my trip, I believe absolutely that there is a goldmine lying beyond our norm and here are some that I dug out;

Knowledge: New experiences beget new discoveries which beget new learnings. I had read somewhere that it is easy to become complacent with doing the same things over and over again leaving little room for learning anything new. I came across an answer to a question a while back which reaffirms what I am talking about. The question was, what can one do to be a genius? The answer was; experience new things every day. The more you experience new things, the more your knowledge spectrum grows from the people you meet down to what you see.

Interesting People: There a bunch of interesting folks out there; people outside the confines of our usual day to day lives. Until we step out and experience the other side, we may not discover how interesting they are.

Fun/Excitement: Well, I can say the initial feeling will probably be anxiety but once you get past that, it becomes fun and exciting to be doing something new. Imagine your first time on a roller coaster, scary at first and fun all the way. That is the same feeling I got too.

Bringing it all together, it is great to have a routine and it has even been found that highly successful individuals thrive on building daily routines. It is safer to do things the same way to build consistency and integrity. But everyone needs that extra spice beyond the norm once in a while, to learn new things and even discover oneself.

So go on out there and do something totally outlandish and discover what lies beyond the norm.

Till next week.
Jaa Mata!