Being in a rut and breaking out of it
The thing about being in a rut is that sometimes it is invisible. For me, it was only when I went on a 3000 kilometre train journey that I clambered over the parapet and upon looking back I saw that I was stuck and had lost all perspective. It happens so slowly and subtly that it is difficult to notice but I had ground myself ever deeper into the same place, driving ever down further limiting my ability to move and see.
And so what is a rut? It’s when your life becomes a shadowland of habit, your actions so ingrained that your life is one large routine. The consequence of this is your perspective narrows, small irritations scale up to appear as major problems. You lose freedom of movement. You have the vague sense that you are squandering your life because nothing new ever happens, opportunities fail to arise.
I had two years of COVID of living with an ex-partner, breaking up, moving out by myself. All those disruptions had done little to dislodge my rusted on existence. Instead I had worked on perfecting my routine - borrowing from self-help bibles like Getting Things Done and Atomic Habits - I was getting up early, meditating, writing, working all day, going to the gym twice a week, going to bed at the same time, intermittent fasting, performing fortnightly reviews. I had a savings regimen, I was monitoring my performance against yearly and five yearly goals. Basically, I had optimised my life into such a well ordered artefact that it squeezed out any chance for serendipity.
More insidiously I had been aware that this was happening. Despite all my achievements - I had kicked off a freelance writing career - had saved a housing deposit. I was not happy. I felt like a prisoner in my own routine. I was becoming a boring person to speak with because my life was passionless. I struggled to make time for people and had little to speak about despite reading extensively.
I tried tweaks within my uber-system: my therapist advised me to pick one day a week where you can do whatever you want, no structure, nothing. A sound idea but the issue was that I was so exhausted on that day I usually just lay around my apartment. Habit as any addict will tell you is connected to place. Late, last year I decided to take every 8th week off. This helped a lot. No gym, no fasting. The problem here was the same. It was actually difficult not to be in my schedule when I was in my apartment. The whole place had become a temple to my routine.
The solution arrived when I went to Singapore for a work conference. I decided to take an extra two weeks off and take a train from Singapore through Malaysia and Thailand to Laos. While going through some beautiful landscapes, speaking with interesting people and eating excellent food, the real benefit extracting myself from my life and living in a different way. Rather than long timelines - like those with work projects and saving up for housing deposits - the demands of my journey were immediate: get a hotel room for the night, book a train ticket the next morning. This reacquainted me with a different mode of living. On the train I was far less of a passenger and I was living in the moment.
This shift in modes allowed me to peer back at my life and realise how overly structured it was. I realised this by the end - that I was beginning to take chances and more importantly opportunities were beginning to crop up. I met a lady on the train and through her I met her friend’s boyfriend that worked for a company that defused unexploded ordinance.
On the second last day I was walking in the street of Luang Prabang and someone had yelled out “Kurt” - this was my sister’s friend. She was working on a nearby conservation project helping a range of animals that were endangered. Nothing may come of these interactions but it meant that I was suddenly among people doing interesting things that sooner or later could result in opportunities.
I realised that all these aspects came from me shaking up my routine and exposing myself to different things. Travelling well had taught me how to adapt in the moment again while interesting places with unique problems like Laos drew interesting people with unique personalities. All this felt very much more like real life than navigating the shadow world my routine had become.
The plan now is to move to Laos for a few months and simply see what happens. There is an important caveat here - I know that moving will not change who I am but it will change my life. While this newness is invigorating it will come with its own lonelinesses and challenges. It also reframes my fears of not meeting conventional life goals - not being in a relationship, not being a homeowner, not having children - into freedom. It does mean I can take advantage of my freedom, my lack of connectedness that I was feeling. Maybe it will suck but also maybe it will create enough of a ripple for new opportunities too.