Anna Chamberlin
I like to think that as my seasonal depression fades away, so do my bad habits. Whenever the sun makes its appearance, the flowers poke their heads out, and there’s that intangible feeling of hope in the air. While it’s not directly proportional, my habits tend to improve when I am happier. Taking advantage of this spring joy, I’m aiming to get rid of some habits and make some room for others. Big-picture Spring Cleaning, if you will.
This spring I will be cleaning out $8 coffees and pessimism.
The absence of $8 coffees will solve a lot of things. First and foremost, my wallet will be a lot happier, which is always a good place to start. Almost daily, I catch myself paying close to double digits for 16oz of espresso and milk. I hate it — yet I fall victim all too often.
This change will address more than my funds, though. I’d love to work towards diminishing my caffeine addiction — which I only recently came to terms with. On the days I really needed caffeine, perhaps I’d get my money’s worth with my meal swipe. Or I’d resort to green tea — the world of non-$8-coffee caffeine is my oyster! And, lastly, I’d spend less time hovering for a table in Atticus, which arguably adds an hour to my life each week. That’s a whole 20 minutes of work and 40 minutes of procrastinating that I’m missing out on.
But we’re not just cleaning out the overpriced latte.
Pessimism: I’ve come to the conclusion that pessimism is a waste of space and should therefore be cleaned out, immediately.
Pessimism disguises itself as reality and eats away at my consciousness. I work myself up and create all these elaborate scenarios where something, or everything, goes wrong. If I have a situation at hand, I tend to only see the bad aspects of it.
When I write it out like that I can clearly see how horrendous this habit is.
Pessimism just stops me from trying, hoping and appreciating what’s good. There’s so much good out there. I mean, to start off: we’re at YALE. We were BORN. You could say those two are pretty solid. Up for interpretation, I guess.
Point is: Why should I bother spending so much time toying with potential negative outcomes? Why entertain the voice in my head that emphasizes every bad aspect and somehow makes all the goodness around me invisible? This adds nothing productive to my life. Waste.
Here’s the plan: I’ll use the space cleaning out pessimism gives me and fill it with optimism.
Pessimism is a waste of mental real estate. $8 coffee is a waste of your credit card’s energy. Spring Cleaning is meant to eliminate waste. Sounds like a successful Spring Cleaning to me.