Curing Repetitive Task Existence (Part 1)

I received an e-mail on Wednesday morning from one of those impossible to cancel joke-a-day services. Between the myriad of ads I found the following gem:

A man is not old until his regrets take the place of dreams - Yiddish Proverb

For some reason, I couldn't get this phrase out of my head. I had a hard time clearing my mind of the word Yiddish too because it sounds so funny and I have to assume means sort-of-Yidd.

By the end of the day, my brain had connected this proverb with a video I'd seen recently. It's called Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. I'm not a huge fan of watching an hour+ long video on the small screen, but you also can catch it on PBS (I've not been a huge fan of PBS since they jumped the shark by outing Sesame Street's Snuffleupagus in 1985 and stopped showing Monty Python reruns). I've included the video below, but you may want to get a little back story first.

Part of the challenge of being middle age is keeping yourself challenged. Not to get too scientific, but humans have one of the highest brain to body mass ratios (Mice have a higher ratio making it ironic that we experiment on them). The big brain is good, allowing us to become more efficient through repetitive experiences. I can now get the boys to bed in under 10 minutes, cook dinner for them in 8, and fall asleep on the couch in under 10 minutes (quicker if my wife has the remote). However, the big brain is also bad and can lead to RTE.

MAG's Theory of Repetitive Task Existence (RTE): As a brain protection mechanism, repetitive task experiences lead to Groundhogs Day syndrome. This syndrome is characterized by waking up with a strong feeling of deja vu.

To cure myself of RTE I went back to the basics. What did I really enjoy doing when I was a kid and what dreams did I have? Notice that this is NOT a (Bucket) list to check off before you wake up (?) on the wrong side of the grass.

We don't often think about birthday cards when we pick them out. Find the right age, see if it's funny, and buy it. However, in my next post I'll share how a birthday card changed my life and became a dream of mine.

Shameless Plug: All Things About Dreams