Consistency
This is the 44th time that I am sitting down and writing something on a Sunday. If nothing else, I think I’m a pretty consistent person; I’ve been frequenting the same cafe on weekends since I’ve been going to since 2nd year. I’ve been working as a TA for nearly 5 years, mostly with the same set of 2-3 courses. I played the trombone for 8 years. Doing some introspection, there’s a certain calm I derive from being consistent; it’s just one less thing to think about. That said, I feel at times that I may have missed some opportunities from being too much of a creature of habit, both on a professional and personal level:
- I continued to play trombone in university even after I found it to be generally unfulfilling and not as relaxing as I once found it.
- I could have used the time spent in rehearsals to pursue other things (no guarantees that I’d actually do this instead of watching Netflix, but you get the idea).
- I TA’ed the same course (CPSC 110) seven times, in a row.
- I could have branched out and TA’ed/explored other courses. They say you only really learn something by teaching it.
I have a tendency to keep doing the same thing, e.g. TA’ing or playing trombone, until I really reach the point where I’ve just about had enough. In other words, I’m really bad at breaking out from the inertial pull of the things I find comforting. By the time I break out of this inertial pull, the thing that I enjoyed so much no longer appeals to me at all. I think this is a sign that I need to really be more mindful of when I’m reaching a point where I need to just do something else.
I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing. It’s often very easy for me to become deeply interested in a subject and spend most of my time reading about it or thinking about it. I guess the dark side to this is it becomes hard to maintain a healthy balance between this interest and other things in life.
I’m not sure for how much longer I’ll keep writing on Sundays, but I feel like I’ve derived a lot of pleasure from just sitting down at my computer and not programming. I think it’ll continue for the time being, its inertial pull is too strong.