September 2020 Massage Blog
Autopilot?
By- Judy Bevilacqua, LMT
A man once talked about how his wife used to cut the ends off of her roast before she put it in the pot. “Why do you do that?’’ he asked her. “Because that’s how my mother did it, and she was a great cook,’’’ his wife replied. So the man asked his mother-in-law, “Why did you cut the ends off the roast before you cooked it?”
“So it fit in my pot,’’ she replied, “I had a very small pot.’’
In 2014, the staff of the London Underground went on strike, forcing thousands of commuters to find different ways to get to and from work. It was a major inconvenience. When it was all over and the strikers went back to work, officials learned that 1 in 20 commuters stuck with their new routes. Amazing! - forced out of autopilot by the strike, they found a more convenient way to get to work.
We’re all on autopilot for some things - it works for us most of the time. We learn, file the lessons in our memory, and they become our daily habits. But sometimes it takes a great disruption for us to pause and ask ourselves, “Is this the best way to do things?”
This year, we’ve all had disruptions. We’ve had to stay at home, keep our distance, learn to live without regular haircuts and dinners out. Our usual routine was not just disrupted - it shut down!
Now I’ve had my own “major disruption” - a car accident left me with an injured hand and I’m back out of work for a while. I’ll be fine, but there’s some healing and adapting I have to learn along the way.
Change isn’t easy - most times it’s a righteous pain in the neck. But change is part of life and our ability to adapt is what sets us apart. There is an upside to forcing ourselves to rethink everything, and to ask, “how can I do this better/easier/faster/smarter?”
Ben Franklin said "When you're finished changing, you're finished.”
But my favorite quote? “When something goes wrong in your life, just yell ‘Plot Twist’ and move on.” - Anonymous
So from me to you - “PLOT TWIST!” - I’ll see you all soon!