Portmantle

17 July 2024. Day 2/75

Happy Day 2 of 74 Rox!

Here are the updates:

1. Get out of bed within 10 minutes of waking up every single day
   • Yes!
2. Eat at least 5 fruits/vegetables a day
   • Peach
   • Tomato
   • Bell Pepper
   • Onion
   • Mushroom
3. Walk at least 1 mile a day
   • walked 3.88 miles! Got about 1.5 volunteering at a museum. Got the rest on a lovely walk on the beach just before sunset 🙂 Beautiful day!!! I think it’s good that I set the goal to be 1 mile a day. I think if I set the goal higher, it would be a bit too overwhelming and it would take a lot more motivation for me to even start/try to do it. But since its a reasonable amount of miles to me, I feel like its easy to not only, but also to overshoot by a lot.
4. Read 10 pages of any book a day
   • 10 pages of 100 Years of Solitude- this goal is a bit tougher for me. I started reading way too late and I was so tired haha.
5. Spend at least 10 minutes a day on a creative hobby (will probably be watercolor and writing)
   • writing! did a bit of watercolor too!
6. Clean one space every day
   • folded some clothes that were piling up on a table/stand thing I have in my room.

I also wanted to establish some additional ground rules haha. A “day” will be from when I wake up to when I go to bed, not from midnight to midnight. Vegetables count if they are fresh, frozen, or canned, as long as they are not fried and the entire vegetable can be seen before I cook it (canned tomatoes hypothetically count, but ketchup doesn’t; canned garbanzo beans count, but premade hummus doesn’t but if I made hummus, it would count). For the cleaning one, it doesn’t count if I’m on a trip because I do have a few trips planned for the next 75 days. If I get sick (hopefully I don’t), but the bed one doesn’t count and the mile doesn’t count, but I have to make up those bed days and mile days after I’m done with the first 75 days.

I’m thinking I’ll also answer some journal prompts I find/random self-reflection questions that I think will help me think a bit more about my life.

So I was listening to the “101 Essays that will Change Your Life” audiobook on Spotify. I guess I’ll just start there.

Question 1: What and who is worth suffering for?

• friends and family. anytime, anywhere, anything. I’d do anything for them.
• a better, more secure future
• money (I don’t say this in a greedy or money-hungry way, but i really just don’t have much money right now and I think it’s worth suffering a bit to feel that sense of financial security again)
• I’m a big big BIG believer in exposure therapy. I think broadening comfort zones is a noble thing to suffer for. Every time I have random bouts of social anxiety, I do make an effort to go out of my way to seek social interaction until I feel less anxiety around people again.
• If the outcome of the suffering leads to more benefits in general
• Anything that makes me a better person in terms of kindness as well as growth/development
• Anything that puts good into the world
• Anything where suffering a lot one time leads to long-term peace and never having to deal with suffering a little bit periodically

Notes/highlights about today:

• I really love volunteering. I volunteer at my favorite museum and I have learned so so so much ever since I started, especially about dinosaurs and prehistoric and current animals. I find it really exciting to spend time there because it is so drastically different from anything I’m planning to do in my career, but it’s an area that I’ve always been fascinated with and there really is nothing else I would rather do with my time right now than learn animal facts and get to talk to people about them. I feel like it gives me such a unique perspective in my career and personal life to be able to be knowledgeable about a lot of incredibly diverse things. For context, I used to work in fashion and restaurant public relations. Now, I’m doing music marketing, real estate, and I’m about to start a fellowship in data analytics. And I also have this super random background in animals, and I just absolutely love that. I really hope I can find a way someday to merge these interests together. Outside of volunteering, I never really get good opportunities to talk to a lot of strangers. I have wonderful, wonderful close friends, but sometimes I feel like I already know a lot of their stories and beliefs and perspectives. It’s really really great to be exposed to people who I never would’ve met at school or at my old jobs. I love how it’s a level playing field across generations, and I’ve been able to befriend working moms, retired grandparents, museum staff, and students all in one place. I love when I’m talking about an artifact and someone just launches into a story and it’s the most amazing feeling of connection that’s so hard to find in other places and situations.
• I get to go to the beach on my drive home from the museum, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. The beach is my absolute number 1 happy place and I love it so much and I refuse to ever take it for granted. Living by the ocean is the luckiest, most special thing on the planet. It’s such a wonderful place to feel at ease and grounded to yourself. If there are two things that I refuse to ever take for granted, and that I will actively write paragraphs about my deep, deep love for, its friends/family and the beach. I never get used to them, even if I’ve known them all my life, and I am thankful every day for them.
• One of my favorite quotes ever is “The way to know life is to love many things” from Van Gogh. It’s been echoing through my mind a lot lately. That’s the energy I want to embody right now and for the rest of my life. I’ve been pretty depressed and unhappy the past few months since I’ve been unemployed. Thinking about all the things I love really helps pull me out of that.