What would be your perfect day?
To wake up in the morning, and know that it will be yet another perfect day. To get out of bed and to go through your morning routines, remembering that each step and each move will take part in making this day perfect.
The exact activity isn't even that important, nor the exact location. If certain criteria are met, I think something close to perfection can be achieved.
Meaningful Work
Without work a day can never be perfect. But work must be enjoyable. It should challenge you, excite you, teach you, and provide fulfillment. Most of all, it should be a progression towards something that you deeply want, and you should also be able to progress along with it. In short, making the world a better place, and at the same time making yourself a better person. In a way, it doesn't matter whether it is fixing bicycles, growing a garden, or building homes (just off the top of my head). As long as the activity meets these requirements, it may not even feel like work.
Sure, work should also pay you a living, but if I can make a living by doing my work, I may as well skip the money part completely.
Balanced Activities
What I always enjoyed, is having a diversity in my daily activities. Alternating physical labor with mental work, for example. In hotter climates it makes sense to get up early and do some hard physical work in the morning while it's cool, and in the afternoon heat chill in the shade while occupying the brain.
But even if the climate doesn't dictate it, I like to go for walks, bike rides, or swim in the ocean if I happen to be close by, at least once a day.
The other important two things to balance is work with play. But since work should ideally be kinda like playing anyway, I want to call this leisure time breaks instead. Or meals...
I once experienced this wonderful Hobbit-like work schedule on a farm I wwoofed on. They had eight meals a day:
- Morning Tea at 7:00
- Breakfast at 9:00
- Elevenses at 11:00
- Lunch at 1:00
- Afternoon Tea at 3:00
- Beer o'Clock at 5:00
- Dinner at 7:00
- Supper at 9:00
Now you'd probably think, how can you eat all day? But the truth was, these were just 30 minute break intervals between the 90 minute work sessions (except for the last one). However, since in practice taking a break meant hanging out on the porch, and there was always food all around, you might as well call those times meals. Of course you could do whatever you wanted, and if a project required it, you might as well skip that meal. All in all, a setup like this provided a nice equilibrium between doing what you have to and ... well, what you merely want to. Plus, I felt eating small "triangular" quantities many times throughout the day to be better than three "square" meals.
Integrating Chores
Between fixing the world and having some fun there are a number of in between things, that just need taking care of. This includes anything from cutting your nails to washing the dishes. I call this "making the bed". If the first thing you do when you get up is make the bed, you'll go through the day feeling you've achieved something. In this way, making the bed is has more importance than just a tidy looking bedroom.
By making connections between different activities, or stacking functions, if you will, you give more importance to each element than it would have on its own. This way you can weave a pattern of routine through your day, taking care of the basics. If organized efficiently, they may even seem like they're doing themselves.
Sharing Everything
Finally, one of the most essential components of a perfect day are the people you share it with. Working together, relaxing together, eating together, and just seeing familiar faces around you are important. So yes, it is not just a question of how you spend a perfect day, but with whom.
This leads us also to the second part of @tribesteemup's question: Am I living my days to this perfection? The answer is: only to a certain extent. At the moment it's the last point, my partner I share my life with, who makes my days perfect, while all the other parts are in some great need to be perfected. Last year it was the exact opposite: the only aspect that was missing from my days to make them perfect, was her. But this is all a journey and progression, and one day we may even get there...
All images are from Pixabay.
Please check out these great communities I'm contributing to:
#ecotrain | What is EcoTrain | Discord Community
#tribesteemup |The 8 Pillars of @TribeSteemUp
#cyclefeed | Introducing CycleFeed | Discord Community