Off the Beaten Track

I'm sitting writing this at five past four in the afternoon, which is unusual for me. Writing my blog entries is usually something I do in the evening, often at ten or eleven o'clock at night. It's a sort of winding down activity for me, a chance to reflect on the day when I'm in that hazy half-awake state before I get ready for bed.

Today my routine will be different because by the time I get back from my salsa classes at ten o'clock Andy Murray, the Scottish tennis player, will be playing the final of the Grand Slam and I shall want to watch that. So here I am, at least six hours too early, feeling a little bit uncomfortable because I've stepped outside my usual routine.

But I know that in this case, the change will do me good. It will be exciting to watch such a momentous tennis match, even if Murray doesn't manage to beat Federer. It's interesting for me to sit down and write a blog in the middle of the day and see how I cope with it and what the result will be.

Going off the beaten track in any aspect of our lives throws up new challenges and new possibilities. We let forego the safety net of our familiar routine and leap into the unknown. It might be a big leap, like jacking in our job and going to work in a lumberjack colony in North Borneo. It might be a little leap like buying a vegetarian lunch instead of our usual burger.

The big leaps, like the move to North Borneo, may be too much for us to cope with, so it's often better to begin with a smaller jump, like taking a different route to work, reading a different newspaper or signing up for an evening class in a subject we've never tried before.

We can gradually expand our comfort zone and become more flexible in our attitudes and our activities. Flexibility is a useful attribute to work on as the only thing that's certain in this world is that change happens. The more comfortable we become with it, the easier it will be to cope with it when it is forced upon us unexpectedly, if we face a bereavement or if we suddenly lose our job.

Flexibility is also an extremely useful quality for a writer to have. A person who is flexible and can adapt to different circumstances and settings will probably find it easier to be imaginative because he will be used to seeing things from different angles. Being able to accept new people and new situations also helps us to see them for who they really are instead of falling into the trap of making an assumption about them and making our view of them fit in with our pre-conceived notions.

There! I've taken my small leap for the day by writing my blog in the afternoon. Tomorrow I take a slightly bigger one by beginning my PGCE (teacher traing course). Wish me luck!