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To stick to or to change? That is a question.

I'm a big fan of the word 'ROUTINE'- placing the parts within the range of my everyday life to the exact time/location. Wake up at 7am every morning (6:20 am when I feel like doing some extra workout), go to lab, and back home. Happy hour& drink with my girls on Friday night. Grocery time every Saturday morning at the nearby farmer's market- I assume even 'more routine' than a typical graduate student routine.



When I got to think of the reason, I thought of 'lameness' at once. It is probably the simplest thing to follow the routine. Even your muscles burn less calories when you keep doing the same exercises every day. And always my brain just falls into the same thinking mode: it is time to XXX now! You hear people saying such things as 'You are amazing to stick to XXX!'. But the truth is after you form a habit after 27 days, it becomes your routine and you just follow it unconsciously. 


EATING is just the same for me. I do love trying different recipes when I bake every time, but most of them are cakes/pastries for friends. I myself actually follow an extremely boring diet plan, especially since I tried to control my calories at the same time to spend the least time preparing my food. I bake sourdough bread during the weekends, slice and freeze them, so that I can toast one slice every morning and pair with cheese (most of the time sharp cheddar) and a cup of tea. I try cooking my lunch freshly every morning, which I bet is much simpler than you expect- combination of fish fillet/chicken breast, taro cake/mushrooms and some greens. Dinner is always boiled veges with cottage cheese. Thinking of this, I couldn't even believe myself, but I literally do it every weekday- alas, the power of routine. 
I know it would be much more exciting to unfollow the above; just when I need to push everything done, I don't really want to spend time bothering the alteration.  But I know, I always need some changes. Small things like changing my breakfast will work! 


Like these cuties, the sourdough Salzstangerls are basically another form of my routine sourdough bread. But with little variation of the flour vs. water ratio and of rising process, they have a much more chewy texture and thus a different character. So I should say my breakfast routine is somewhat changed a little bit at least, though I just never live without a good sharp cheese XD.


Besides my laziness, I know that my many routines can also be explained by my timidity. I do the things I'm most familiar with and hang out with friends I feel most comfortable with, because I don't always have the courage to step out of my comfort zone. The interesting thing is every time I did manage to step out, I got surprisingly great experience! So I set one of my social media profile as 'what if I was not afraid, or lazy'- I know it would be GREAT!

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