littlewonderlog

I realized something once again as I went somewhere by subway after a long time – it is one of the best places to immerse myself in reading.

It is a bit noisy, but with music looping in my ears, that surrounding noise can turn into a flow inducer. Having crowds of people around me can have a similar effect. Unlike on the bus where the constantly changing scenery outside the window can interrupt my concentration, I hardly recognize anything or anyone really if I stick my nose in a book (well, an eBook). That rocking and trembling of the train can give me a sort of calmness, and it would be the best environment if I luckily get a seat.

There can be a problem, though: this concentration-boosting environment for reading can make me miss my stop and take me to the final station of the train outside of Seoul.

Well, we need to get out of the city center from time to time anyway.

Whenever I face that feeling of being stuck while writing, I remind myself of this: Go for completion before perfection.

It’s better to build a habit of completion and move one step closer to perfection, rather than pursuing perfection and ending up doing nothing.

I don’t currently have the time and energy for piano (meaning I have decided to use my time and energy for things that are more urgent and important). Yet, I didn’t want to take the piano completely out of my life, so I started practicing it again. My goal is to play for one minute every night before going to bed. After the whole day’s tasks are done, I do some reading and around bedtime, I sit in front of the piano and play it. For a minute. Just a minute.

After a few days, I found a problem and that is that it never ends within a minute. I can practice the C major scale a couple of times in a minute, but I go over that time all the time. I play a bit of scales and small pieces, and it turns into 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and so on. This sneaky little piano takes away my sleep time little by little, yet I have decided to forgive it. I am watching you, though. Really watching.

My learning speed doesn’t seem to be very fast. I can’t really tell how those seemingly fast learners feel about themselves, but I feel that I am a rather slow learner compared to them. Well, what can I do about it? I have no choice but to go through something 10 times when others go through it once, and 100 times when others go through it 10 times. I can just immerse myself further and repeat more.

While enjoying every step of the way and cherishing every moment, I keep learning and going forward even though I am not as fast a learner as others.

The current state is not static.

The current state is always changing, and always will continue to change.

Everything is in a state of flow.

It’s been a while since I started doing a 2-minute squat every morning, and starting today, I raised it to a 3-minute routine (Yes, I am that hardcore). I don’t normally count the reps (and that’s why I use a 2-minute timer), but I counted them today to see how many times I could do in 3 minutes – it’s almost 100.

Well, 3 minutes pass really quickly (my thighs might disagree). While “100 squats every day” seems like a big goal, a “3-minute squat every day” feels like nothing. It’s something people might look down on, mocking, “Can you even call it a workout?” Yes, it can be called a workout, and it’s quite hard.

Though “100 squats every day” and a “3-minute squat every day” are fundamentally almost the same activity, the latter gives a much lighter psychological burden. It can even hurt your pride a little bit to think about skipping it. And that’s the essence of it all. Although I am worried about my thighs becoming too big and muscular, I will keep going for now. I am not gonna get elephant thighs, right? (Don’t even bother worrying about it).

I have sharpened my kitchen knives after quite a while.

I usually sharpen them once a month, but it’s been a bit longer this time for some reasons. Whenever my knives became dull, I used to nag my husband to sharpen them. Now, after I learned how to sharpen them through watching some YouTube videos, I do it whenever I feel like it. Although I am not sure how well I actually do this task, I think my knife-sharpening skill is pretty good since the knives I sharpen easily chop through carrots.

After soaking the sharpening stone in water until the bubbles stop coming out, I push the knives against the stone and they just glide smoothly. I take out all the kitchen knives I have and put them in the sink and sharpen them one by one. From a big Chinese kitchen knife that looks like I don’t quite deserve to use to a tiny fruit knife that’s as big as my palm, I sharpen them all and they are good for almost a month. Once I concentrate on the scraping sound and the sensations I feel through my fingers, unnecessary thoughts are gone. Here and now, there is only this knife making both rough and soft sounds at the same time. It is almost like a meditative experience.

I have finished sharpening them all again today.

Arranging them on the table gives me this pleasure and pride. Today, I am cooking curry with these knives.

During the winter, the park was all dry, bare, and brown, but now colors have started to show up. There are yellow colors of cornelian cherry trees, pink colors of plum trees, and white colors of magnolia trees. Oh, and there is some green grass that I can’t quite identify.

Going to the park every day gives me the pleasure of quickly spotting the changing seasons through these colors.

I am cherishing the joy of spring that’s coming little by little.

 

…and a seemingly 95-year-old granny.

The subway was full, and an elderly lady whose age seemed almost 95 years old sat in the pregnancy priority seat. She was someone whose deep wrinkles showed the toughness of the life she had been through.

If I were pregnant, would I be able to ask her for the seat? I definitely would ask other people, but someone as old as her? Not quite. I wouldn’t even stand in front of her, but would rather go to another carriage and find an available pregnancy priority seat. There were no priority seats available for the elderly so I would rather let her sit there.

I believe that’s why we are supposed to leave the priority seat for pregnant women empty, so that pregnant women wouldn’t have to think about asking someone for a seat or go through the uncomfortable feeling of asking.

If that elderly lady hadn’t been sitting in that priority seat, it would have been empty for pregnant women (it was supposed to be empty at least), and somebody would have given their normal seat to the elderly lady (somebody was supposed to be that kind at least).

The priority seats for pregnant women are supposed to be kept empty and we are supposed to give up our seats for the elderly.

Is it that difficult?

I go for a run every day, but my body feels different every time. Some days it feels super light like a feather while running a lap around the park, and on other days it feels super heavy like a ton of bricks that make me want to just sit there. It’s the same route, but some days are easy, and others are hard. On those days that feel heavy (or when my knees send a rescue signal), I don’t really run. I alternate between running and walking.

I follow my own rhythm, whether I run or walk.

I follow my body.