We all f*ck-up sometimes. It’s important to remember that not even the wisest among us are perfect or infallible. Despite our best intentions sometimes we overindulge, hurt others, make bad and/or rash decisions that don’t quite work out as we planned.
We're all just two chromosomes away from chimpanzees. That singular fact is the great equalizer for me and is also a decent way to humble ourselves when we start feeling especially high and mighty.
What separates those who win more, enjoy life more, and generally f*ck up less are one thing, HABITS. These potentially life-altering habits are nothing more than a series of baby steps that are eventually incorporated into your daily routine. When you zoom in and just focus on the small changes that are necessary to create the larger improvement life seems a whole lot less daunting.
If you eat healthy most of the time, the occasional fast food burger isn’t going to do one bit of harm. If you get your ten-thousand steps in each day a lazy day on the couch isn’t going to set you back. If you try your best to be a good person all of the time, you will have less chaos in your life and people will be more likely to forgive you when you make a mistake.
The power of habits became apparent to me a few days ago while I was taking, what might be, my last bike ride of the cycling season.
This year I've managed to ride at least five times a week through all kinds of weather, the crispness of Minnesota's spring to the stifling heat of those hazy summer days.
...and as I was gliding through the vivid tunnels of luminous autumn color I couldn't help but start thinking about how many miles I must've ridden this year. When I got home I tallied it up I almost couldn't believe the number. In 2023 I've cycled a grand total of...
...684 miles. This is almost the distance between Minnesota and Ohio. I was genuinely surprised! It has to be some kind of personal record. None of the rides were especially long in distance but they still added up, quite significantly, over time.
This ordeal reminded me of the power habits have over our lives, for better and for worse. Every single thing of value in my life has come about from good habits -- writing, relationships, investing, health/fitness. It's never a bad time to take a deep inventory of daily routines and make some slight rebalancing to personal and professional goals and priorities.
I thought about how valuable it would be to set a reminder on my phone to come up twice a year, just three words, "Time to Rebalance". This will be a prompt, burned into my routine once in the spring and once in the fall to remind me to take stock of my personal and professional habits.
I wish you all a great weekend and leave you with this...
Good habits are immensely powerful and drastically reduce the frequency and severity of f*ck-ups.
Let's face it, at this moment our planet could handle a lot less f*cking-up from us extremely dysfunctional homo sapiens who, I remind you, are only two chromosomes away from chimpanzees. This only happens when each of us become self-aware and change our habits. This steps towards real change can begin today. It's time to rebalance. We are all so much more than the sum of our mistakes.
~Eric Vance Walton~
Thanks for reading! All for now. Remember…trust your instincts, invest in you, live boldly, and take chances.
(Photos are original.)
Poetry should move us, it should change us, it should glitch our brains, shift our moods to another frequency. Poetry should evoke feelings of melancholy, whimsy, it should remind us what it feels like to be in love, or cause us to think about something in a completely different way. I view poetry, and all art really, as a temporary and fragile bridge between our world and a more pure and refined one. This is a world we could bring into creation if enough of us believed in it. This book is ephemera, destined to end up forgotten, lingering on some dusty shelf or tucked away in a dark attic. Yet the words, they will live on in memory. I hope these words become a part of you, bubble up into your memory when you least expect them to and make you feel a little more alive.
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