Life is like indulging in ice cream.
Anticipation is what makes life fun, because routine is boring and monotony unsustainable.
Imagine it like this: You decide to have ice cream once a month and never take a cheat day. You have to power through the cravings, the new shops you keep discovering, and even your friends indulging in the treat in front of you. It seems, on some days, that everyone except you is eating an ice cream and you’re the only one sweltering on the hottest day of the year.
Now fast-forward to the day you finally buy that ice cream. You spend multiple minutes contemplating the favorite flavor. What mood are you in? Dark chocolatey goodness, sunshiney mango, tangy orange, butterscotch, the list of possibilities seems endless and the choice so hard. Finally picking one and mentally filing away the flavor for the next month, you finally dip into that scoop.
The creamy texture, the way it sits and then melts on your tongue, the pieces of fruit (or chocolate!) you scoop up. You make sure to take small bites to make it last longer, as though to pre-emptively satisfy the urges sure to rise in the next 30 days.
In short, you savor the experience.
But let’s flip this –
Say you eat ice cream every day. Initially, you don’t have to pine or wait. You can immediately check out whatever new shop you want to, and you always know that if two flavors entice you, the second one will be waiting for you tomorrow.
Eventually, you shortlist the places you like the most. You even have favorite flavors, and even if you haven’t tried every single one in the shop, it’s routine now to go in and get the first flavor you see. There’s always tomorrow if you don’t like today’s choice. There’s nothing to lose.
But…
There’s also nothing to gain.
That excitement over eating ice cream slowly dwindles and disappears. You stop savoring the experience. In fact, where you earlier blocked that time to eat ice cream without distractions, you now spend on an office call, barely noticing when the scoop is gone.
It’s become a small, insignificant part of your routine.
Now imagine if life was like eating ice cream every day. Nothing changes, day in and day out. There’s no anticipation. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing to dread.
(I could probably direct this reflection into how too much luxury or comfort or autonomous tasks but that is not my focus.)
This ice cream analogy (which I came up with before dropping off to sleep yesterday) made me realize that challenges, difficulties and aspirations are what keep up the anticipation in our lives. They make the ice cream after the long wait worth it and make us value not only the end result but also the process.
During the month where you resisted indulging, you became resilient. You learnt to resist temptation, even though it felt like Atlas had handed you the world and gone on indefinite vacation. You prioritized your reasoning and decision over momentary satisfaction, and at the end, it made you feel better about yourself. Because you stuck to a goal unwaveringly.
Difficult times in life are the same. They make you anticipate and crave better times, and then you savor them more than you would have otherwise.
