Cold Shower #14: The Sound of Silence

For this last one, my phone was almost out of battery, so I went for it without music. I quickly realized that I'd been using the music as a cue and motivational tool. The pattern was to put on a song, turn on the water, jump under the steam when the guitars come in or when the verse starts. My mind would naturally gravitate towards the idea that the next change in the music was the right time to just go for it!

Without music, I found myself, nearly a month after my first cold shower, dreading the feeling. And that's fine. I think systems are important as hell, and if music is part of a system that gets the job done, then great. But it is also important to be able to bridge the gap when a system momentarily fails, or when an unexpected circumstance arises. I have noticed that maintaining habits is not all that difficult when I'm in a daily groove, but a curveball, a change in location, a late night out, a holiday, is often enough to throw me off of my habits and then I wake up a month later to the realization that my four-month meditation streak has long been over. 

So it took a moment of wasting perfectly good water, and a mental false starts, before I said fuck it and jumped under the shower head. 

This little micro-lesson has reaffirmed an idea that I've had kicking around my head for a while, which is that I'd like to develop a system to keep the ship steady when those curveballs come. What system could I put in place so that a visit home to see my friends and family doesn't become a reason to not hit the meditation cushion or the eat healthily or to exercise or to work on creative projects?