As I was saying last night, I am a bit ill and it has caused some disruption. But the major disruptions are coming from two other things. The first, our heating system which is an almost six year clusterfuck of problems. And the second, is our car, which probably due to the extreme cold, now has a major issue and is in the workshop. They haven't time to look at it yet, so I don't even know what is wrong with it - but I know enough enough about cars, that it isn't good.
It is interesting how everything starts to knock-on, with things having to be rearranged, setup, calls made, conversations had. Hours and hours of work, while also being stressful, as normal life has to continue, but it has to be achieved through different means. Even going to the shop and doing the shopping becomes a challenging event, considering it requires a car, especially since it is very cold and snowy. Thankfully though, we will have my in-law's car from now on for a bit, so at least transport is now taken care of. As for the heating system, that is still an on-going challenge, with more people coming tomorrow to try and fix more problems, with none of them seemingly knowing what the problem actually is.
All this aside, I find it interesting how fragile we can become when our default schedules are rearranged. Maybe these are bigger things, but even small things that disrupt our automatic routines can cause us to "forget" parts of what we do daily. A phone call just before we walk out the door, and somehow the wallet gets left behind. Something distracting catches an eye at the store, and I forget to buy milk. Little events become like sticks across a marching line of ants, and chaos ensues.
But, it is equally interesting that when we don't have these disruptions, it flows so smoothly that we don't even notice that we are working on defaults. We don't question what we are doing, because the automatic pilot has control and it feels fine. Only when the stick falls do we feel enough discomfort to actually recognise what we are doing, because the way we do it has to change.
Defaults habits are comfortable and feel right, because we aren't actually questioning them. When we try something new though, we are constantly evaluating what is happening and how we feel about it. As a result, a bad habit can feel fine, because it is familiar and our body and mind doesn't have to fight any resistance to accomplish it. And this is why living on unexamined defaults can be limiting, and why only doing what is comfortable can be limiting. If we aren't pushing into discomfort, we aren't learning, and therefore, we aren't increasing our possible potential.
But it feels so easy.
Easy doesn't mean we are benefitting though and often enough, like a microwave dinner, can actually be doing us harm if repeated consistently over time. Convenience carries a monetary cost and is usually more expensive, but it also carries other costs that aren't as clear, like those to our various forms of wellbeing. We have built an environment where convenience is encouraged, even though it is costing us our health, wealth, and potential.
For us now, the biggest problem we have with these two issues are the costs involved, as both of them are going to be significant. The heating system already is, as we have been using almost twice as much electricity as we did at the same time last year, even on days and periods with similar temperature. Electricity is expensive in Finland and our bills have been pretty extreme. Things will work out though, I guess, but it is causing a lot of concessions in our life, as we have to organise a lot, and then have to be here at certain times to let people into the house, explain to them what we have explained to ten others, have them do something only for it not to work and we have to start it all again.
And all of this will have knock-on too.
That is the way life works. One movement creates another, and those make more movements. On and on, the universe keeps moving through an endless chain reaction of movements forever. But forever isn't in our life experience, so all we need remember is that eventually, we stop moving. So better make the most of the movements we have. Living on autopilot likely doesn't make life better - but it is easier.
Until it isn't.
Taraz
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