July- A Recap

I made my July goal to savor the month. I wanted to slow down and soak it in. I had grand visions of lingering over meals and morning coffee. Of going on long daily walks and finishing several books I started at the beginning of the year. Most importantly to this space, I had planned to blog daily. This obviously didn't happen. None of it did. I still felt myself rushing from place to place and thing to thing. I found myself speeding through meals and phone calls with my mom. What started as easeful living in the beginning of the month turned into pure laziness by the end of it. I gave up on cooking wholesome meals, exercising and blogging daily on about day three and never got back on the bandwagon.

The point of savoring July was to teach myself to stop fretting about the future. To focus on the present and avoid getting caught up in worries about things that haven't happened yet. Instead I ended up with month of self indulgence and no more peace about things I can't control.

But experiments would be nothing without the lesson we learn from the end result. In the last few weeks I've started to crave discipline and routine. Not in the idealistic way, that I think I will feel better when I have one, but actually setting an alarm and waking up at the same time every day. I crave healthy foods and exercise. I look forward to going to bed around the same time each night. I finally have some blog posts spinning around in my head and I look forward to sitting down to write in the mornings.

I learned I must take a new approach to savoring. I want to appreciate the mundane and I need to celebrate the treats that make life special without regularly indulging to the point of excess. I am curious to see where my mind settles within the structure of self-imposed discipline. In the past I've been obsessed with the routine and angry with myself when I don't stick to it perfectly. But it's been a while since I've done anything with regularity so I'm looking forward to see how this will go and I'll continue to remind myself that it's an experiment, with no right or wrong outcome.

What are your thoughts on routine? Are you better with them or are you more of a the go with the flow type?