海角大神

One of my Secrets of Adulthood 鈥� perhaps counter-intuitively 鈥� is 鈥淚t鈥檚 often easier to do something聽every day than to do it some days.鈥� I post to my blog six days a week. I take notes every day. I write in my one-sentence journal every day. Many people have told me that they find it easier to exercise when they exercise every day.

If I try to do something four days a week, I spend a lot of time arguing with myself about whether today is the day, or tomorrow, or the next day; did the week start on Sunday or Monday; etc. And that鈥檚 exhausting.

If I do something every day, I tend to fall into a routine, and routine has a bad reputation. It鈥檚 true that novelty and challenge bring happiness, and that people who break their routines, try new things, and go new places are happier, but I think that some routine activities also bring happiness. The pleasure of doing the same thing, in the same way, every day, shouldn鈥檛 be overlooked. By re-framing, you can find happiness in activities like doing dishes or sweeping the floor, as well as your beloved morning coffee-and-newspaper.

The things you do every day take on a certain beauty, and provide a kind of invisible architecture to daily life.

Funnily enough, two geniuses whom I associate with the idea of the unconventional wrote about the power of doing something every day.

Andy Warhol wrote, 鈥淓ither once only, or every day. If you do something once it鈥檚 exciting, and if you do it every day it鈥檚 exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it鈥檚 not good any more.鈥�

Gertrude Stein made a related point: 鈥淎nything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.鈥�

So if there鈥檚 something that you wish you did more regularly, try doing it every day; if you do something every day, revel in it.