Life Glee / Getting in the Way of Yourself

One thing at a time, occasionally, for no reason

The plainest suggestion in this issue, offered without any promises attached to it.

Doing one thing at a time is not a philosophy and nothing much depends on it. But most small pleasures are quiet enough that they only register when nothing else is competing, and doing two things at once reliably removes the quieter one. Eat and read, and the reading survives while the food becomes fuel. Walk and take a call, and the call survives while the walk becomes transport. Neither outcome is a disaster. It is just that one of the two things is being paid for and it is always the milder one.

So: occasionally, and not as a rule, do the single thing. Drink the drink and look out the window. Walk without the headphones for one of the three walks this week. There is no target, nothing to keep up, and skipping it entirely for a fortnight costs nothing. The whole recommendation fits in a sentence and does not need a system built around it, which is unusual and deliberate.

What you get in return is small and quite consistent: a few minutes that were actually had rather than passed through. Over a week that might be twenty minutes. It is not a transformation and it is not offered as one. It is simply more of what was already there, collected rather than spilled, and available again tomorrow on the same terms.