I keep eating.
I keep working.
I keep resting.
I keep laughing.
I keep thinking.
On Saturday I spent the day at La Jolla Shores beach. Nice! The wind, sun, sparkling water and yum food combo works well for me to relax. My family and I do this every summer. My girls and I, go to the beach, stick our toes in the sand, eat, surf, snorkel, kayak and chill.
It’s called consistency. Haspers do the same things, over and over, the same way, and this is really, really kick-tail good!
Today I got up early and made strong, dark, hazelnut coffee and put milk in it. I do this every single morning without fail and I pet my fuzzy cat Megan and sit in my Lazyboy and luxuriate and extend time and write and read wise writers and dawdle with casualism and alonification and cud chewing.
Life has a pocketful of change in it, that much is certain, but to maintain sanity and peace and to show courage we must keep doing the same things again and again and again, and then yet again squared.
This is a prescription for mental health.
Families in crisis, families with losses, need to find ways to maintain consistency, movie going, meal making, regular bedtimes. Why? It shows courage, especially to the children, to keep going, to keep living, to keep keeping the family-keeping behaviors.
Emerson quipped that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Emerson, of course, was wrong — even while he was partially right. People have a foolish tendency to stick to old perspectives, but they rightly stick to what is consistently true and what is consistently helpful.
A wise consistency is the trademark of great minds, a consistency of love, a consistency of order, and consistency of stabilizing practices.
This morning, Megan, my cat brought me her toy whale. She always does this, drops it by my chair, and then talks, and waits to be congratulated with a pat. She does this because she is worried, seeing that I don’t have claws like her, that I can’t catch my own food. Megan wants to feed me, again.
Even the animals know, and thrive on Consistency.
The same thing is often the next good thing we need.
Thrive! 