Dealing with the monotony of everyday life
By TARA ROMERO — tcrome@ucdavis.edu
Everyone says life is like a roller coaster with ups and downs, but why does it feel like I’m stuck in a loop-de-loop?
Wake up. Go to class. Work. Sleep. Wake up to do it all over again. We’ve reached the part of the quarter where we’ve settled into our routines, and I’m starting to get restless. Every day feels the exact same, and it’s getting harder and harder to tell each day apart.
Yet, limiting this feeling to just this quarter doesn’t do the monotony justice. We have 10 weeks full of midterms, papers, more midterms and then a final exam — and we’re on our third round just this year. Our hair grows long and we cut it short again. We clean the kitchen just for it to get dirty. Then the years go by, cycling through each season before the Davis heat starts to roll in and cook us all.
Life is cyclical. Every morning the sun rises, and every night the sun sets. The moon rotates the earth and shifts into different phases. The earth does one cycle around the sun, and we call it a year.
These facts always fill me with a sense of dread. How are we supposed to escape this never-ending loop? If every day feels the same, then what’s the point?
I’ve been grappling with this feeling for years at this point, and I don’t think it’s in my power to change how the world works. Unfortunately, I can’t just stop the world from turning — and I know professors aren’t going to want to skip out on their midterm cycle just because I asked them to.
Instead, we must continue to move forward, and we must learn how to live a cyclical life. So, how do we turn what feels like a circle into a spiral? How do we feel like time is moving forward if everything feels exactly the same?
While every day may feel identical, if we look closer we can see that everything is a little bit different than it was yesterday. There are so many moments that don’t seem like they matter — yet those are the moments we have to rely on. Maybe today you saw a gopher pop out of his hole on the ground by Bainer Hall. Maybe you noticed two women in your apartment complex propping up chairs and having a coffee together. Perhaps the air had a noticeably sweeter scent when you opened your window this morning — or you noticed someone on campus almost trip and then regain their balance.
Little details like those make days memorable. All of those examples occurred around me on different days this past month, and, without them, the month would just be one big blur of “Wake up. Class. Work. Sleep.” That’s not how I want to remember my life.
Making yourself present in the moment doesn’t mean you have to make the world your oyster every single day. While I can respect the “live each day as if it were your last” mindset, there are still everyday responsibilities we have to tend to — and those responsibilities can get tedious if you’re performing them robotically.
Focusing on the small details around us is a good reminder that every moment is unique. It keeps us present and helps to differentiate the days from one another. We can get so caught up in our routines that we forget to look around and see life as it’s happening all around us. Observing and noticing different aspects of life reminds us that the world continues to move forward. Maybe we’re stuck going in a loop-de-loop forever, but that just means we get to see life from every different angle.
Written by: Tara Romero— tcrome@ucdavis.edu
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