Variety as the spice of life.

I woke up with this thought of variety as the spice of life. It is something I have heard since I was knee high to the grasshopper. I am not sure I knew what it meant other than it is good to try different things. And so my child mind has grown up.

I have been thinking about variety and how we must have variety in the foods we eat, not only daily but seasonally, and how much of this is habitual. Then I was thinking about exercise and the same thing applies. We know that we become physically unbalanced or hurt if we do the same exercise repeatedly. We have a concept of mixing the exercises up to cover the basic large muscle groups such as something for the legs, which usually doubles as a cardiovascular exercise, them we do something for the chest and triceps and them back and biceps. So by the end of the week we have pushed and pulled and worked our legs and if we are lucky and motivated, we have done some abdominal work. Once we get a “program” we tend to stick to it.

This is the same pattern as our eating. We have foods we like and we generally stick to them. At the end of the week, we have been on an exercise “diet” and we have also been on an eating “diet” and when the thinking is habitual, we have a thinking “diet.”

I use the word “diet” deliberately. The first 3 letters of the word spell “die.” The Concise Oxford Dictionary has defined diet as “…feed (person, oneself) on special food as medical regimen or punishment. Diet originates from the Greek word, diaita, meaning “way of life”.

Our “way of life” has become a form of punishment because there is no variety in our thinking, in our attitude, our choice of words, in our choices of food, and types of exercise we do, or do not do. No variety in life equals no spice! Spice to me is animation and living to the full sensory, thinking, loving emotional experience possible. If we are not doing this, then we are living the opposite and punishment of stasis becomes the norm. Our lives on all levels and facets become conditioned and squeezed into a box of conformity and habit. This comes down to mindless movement and mindless eating and all stem from a mind that is not thinking leaving us with less mind. We seem to stop thinking once we have a routine established and we become robotic sleepwalkers. This is not living.

There are some things that are good to have as routine to make our transitions from sleep to work easier. Routines are good to have in that they allow an easy flow to occur. Then there is the fine line between routine and habit. In my mind, the difference is habit goes with an unthinking mind and routine is about being conscious and when one is conscious then adaptability and flexibility are infused into routine. This offers us organization and structure within and without.

I am not focused on what the numbers on a scale say and have not been at any time in this life but this does not mean I have not been on a diet! I did my first food diary years ago now and was amazed to discover just how habitual my selections had become. I was buying the same thing week in and week out with a modicum of variety. I like vegetables and fruits. I discovered I was buying the same fruits and the vegetables did have a slightly broader range than the fruits. Once this came to my attention I shifted gears immediately and tried to vary the fruits and the vegetables and felt the difference immediately within my cells. It really is about being conscious, being mindful, and changing. This is the spice of life.