May 3, 2013
Dear Everyone:
I have to say, I really do like being unemployed (retired.)
Every night, when I don’t have to worry about getting ready to go
to work in the morning, I like it.
Every morning, when I don’t have to…etc.
You get the picture.
On the other hand, letting go of old habits is remarkably difficult to
do. For example, I still
tend to do the laundry on the weekend.
Why?
When I got my first (ever!) apartment, I used a local
Laundromat, of
course. You did laundry on
the weekend because you were too tired after work, of course.
And you always had to have enough quarters to run the machines.
Moving up in the world, apartment complexes provided their own laundry
rooms, which meant you could do laundry just about any time.
If you didn’t mind not being able to dry your wet clothes because
someone else was using ALL the driers; and it’s getting late, but you
can’t go to bed until your laundry is done.
And you still needed lots of quarters.
You get the picture.
In the fullness of time, I got my own home, complete with laundry
machines. And no more need
for quarters. But I still
liked the idea of starting each week out with all clean clothes, clean
sheets, clean towels, etc. even though I could wash and dry in the
middle of the night, if I really wanted to, not that I ever did.
Slowly, I’m trying to let go of the idea.
I don’t HAVE to “start the week” with clean clothes.
I can “start” any day of the week.
I’m also getting used to the idea that I don’t need two complete,
separate wardrobes: One for
Work and another for Not Work.
Changing the sheets on the bed works just as well on Tuesday, or even
Wednesday, as it did on Sunday.
Nevertheless, “that’s the way we’ve always done it” is a very powerful
motivator. Just this week,
people were celebrating May Day because it was once the day that Winter
ended and Summer began. (If
you’re wondering why, just consult your friendly, neighborhood Celtic
calendar.) “Jeannie” wanted
Chinese cuisine for dinner one
Christmas Eve; and we’ve been going to
Chinese restaurants on December 24th ever since.
We just get used to doing things a certain way, then forget why we did
it that way. You put
something in a particular place, just for now; and thirty years later,
it’s still there. Because
“that’s the way we’ve always done it.”
There’s a story I heard at work that is supposed to make you stop and
think about how things are done at work, and to encourage you to look at
work differently:
A young couple has just been married.
For their first Sunday dinner together, the young man asks his
new bride to cook a roast.
As she is preparing, he tells her to cut the roast in half before
cooking it.
“Why?” she asks. (Seems like
a reasonable question.)
Because that’s the way his mother always did it.
So they call the mother and ask her why they always cut the roast
in half. Because that’s the
way her mother taught
her. Then they call the
grandmother and pose the same question.
Get the same answer.
Now they’re piling the whole family in the car to go visit
great-grandmother to ask why they always cut the roast in half.
“Because we were so poor, we only had one pot.
And it wasn’t big enough to hold a whole roast.”
The point being, we do things out of habit and forget the original
reason for it.
On the other hand, nothing says I
can’t do a little laundry on the weekend, if I really
want to.
Love, as always,
Pete
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