I Need More “Steak” In My Life

“I’m bored,” I said to my husband in response to him asking me what’s wrong one night upon arriving home from work. I was feeling sad, somber while walking around the house going through my mundane routine with the added bonus of an extra load of laundry. Woo! 

The older I’m getting, the more I noticed I am becoming one of those people who undoubtedly hates routine. Get up, make the coffee, take care of the dogs, pack our lunches, sit in traffic for exactly one hour and twenty minutes, go to work, sit in traffic for exactly one hour and twenty minutes again, make dinner, walk the pups, go to bed. Then restart everything that just happened the day before.

I cannot begin to describe how boring I feel my life is becoming. I mean I really shouldn’t complain because let’s face it, a majority of the world lives in routine just as I do. Do some prefer it? Absolutely! I know some people who couldn’t face the world without their routine ways of doing things. Me on the other hand, finds life to be incredibly boring when routine becomes an ongoing habit.

It has gotten so bad that I will change my nightly routine in the shower.

1. Shampoo Hair
2. Shave Legs
3. Add Conditioner to Hair
4. Wash Body

Once that becomes a bore it changes to something like…

1. Save Legs
2. Shampoo Hair
3. Wash Body
4. Add Conditioner
5. Sing a Bunch of Songs

I noticed myself changing up my ways within my morning routine, work routine, and nightly routine as well. It’s all the same and since we are saving money for our huge trip the end of this year, Kevin and I rarely will go out and have some fun or even to dinner for that matter.

So now that I have this problem on my hands the real challenge comes into play; how to figure out the root of my problem and find a solution.

My husband has this saying, “Steak is something people should have every once and awhile, not on the regular.” His meaning? The things people love: Women getting surprise flowers from her spouse, taking vacations, enjoying a nice bottle of wine, having a steak etc. are all things people should have/get once in a blue moon.

Kevin told me a story of one of his buddy’s who’s wife was getting bored and she seemed to be unhappy. Kevin said the guy explained how he bought her flowers every week and tried his best to be a romantic. Kevin told him that flowers should be one of those things that women get every once and awhile, not every week. You see, when we begin to expect extravagant gestures it becomes boring or normal, so to speak. And once that happens we expect that plus more.

I like to think of it as being the thought process of a drug addict or alcoholic. Once an addict begins to get used to smaller or weaker doses of drugs or alcohol, they have to up the dosage, look for something stronger or drink more in order to “feel something.”  (I do not know this from experience rather I learned this from working for a drug testing company and I do not in anyway encourage this behavior.) 

You can apply this same logic to eating a steak. If you eat it a couple times a week, it becomes “just a steak.” However, eating a steak say every couple of weeks or once a month, well the steak becomes a mouthwatering experience rather than just mundane; oh yay, another steak. Too much steak can be a bad thing for your heart, literally and not enough red meat in your diet leads to iron deficiencies. You have to find the balance. Do you see what I’m saying?

When Kevin made this analogy, I began to wonder if my life was boring because I had too much “steak.” After much pondering I instead found the opposite, I had a negative occurrence of steak.  My life has become boring because there has been nothing exciting happening in my life. I think Kevin realized that too and jumped on the opportunity to turn my negative thought process around.

Kevin decided to surprise me and while I was working last Thursday, he said, “we have to pack tonight.” What, why? He booked a room right on St. Augustine beach for this past weekend and decided to take Monday off too. It was such a delightful gesture he had done. Just the steak I needed!

I’m still going through this sort of 20 something year old crisis, if there is even such a thing. I tend to think too much and I begin to wonder if I made a mistake in not choosing a path involving something using my degree (event management), that I have chosen too boring of a part time job, if I should have moved out of state a long time ago, if this trip coming up in December will be worth the long treacherous wait, etc.  Maybe the path I chose has been too boring for me. Either way, I have to make the most of it. Changing little things here and there works rather well and introducing a much needed “steak” was just the refresher I needed.

Take time to evaluate your life. Figure out if you have too much steak in your life or perhaps you don’t have any at all and that adding a little red meat to your “diet” could be just what’s missing!

xo,

Ashlyn