21cExp
Veteran Expediter
Yep, doing the same thing in the same way in the same--often windowless--building, day after day, week after week, drives me up a wall. If I can't see the sunrise and sunsets and the sky throughout the day, and feel more in touch with my environs than seeing the same walls, equipment, and yeah, even people, every single day, I feel stuck and that I am not moving forward in life.
There's no better solution for that, at least for me, than looking at the world through a windshield for the best part of the day, interspersed with a great deal of interactions with new people, places, and communities. Driving roads never driven before, and re-visiting back roads and small towns I haven't been to in ages, is my self-prescribed remedy.
As example, every once in awhile I stop in this tiny little bakery/sandwich shop in Flandreau SD, where most shops on Main St have been shuttered for a long time and the town clock only reads right twice a day. When the tiny old white-haired gal in apron and glasses emerges from the back on the sandwich side, I call her by name, having learned it from the gals behind the bakery counter the first time I was there, some seven-eight years ago.
"Phyllis!"
The first time she wiped her hands on her apron, looked over her glasses and said "Now wait, don't tell me, you must be Mildred's oldest boy..."
Now when I go in and say, with open arms, "Phyllis!"
She looks up with smiling eyes and says "You're that traveling man! How are you? Where have you been this time?"
