What a 44-Hour Day Made Me Think About
Last month I experienced a 44-hour day and (almost) 8-day week when we flew from Sydney to Rarotonga. Who could have thought that after only a 5.5-hour flight, there is a 20-hour time difference? Yes, you could if you knew where the Greenwich line was. I didn’t know.
We departed at 9.30 pm on Sunday and arrived in Rarotonga at 7 am, on the same Sunday.
Pretty amazing, right?
What would you do if you had two takes on the same day? Would you wake up earlier and go for a walk or that yoga class you’ve been thinking of for a while? Would you start writing your book or a screenplay? Painted something? Or maybe you would just allow yourself to rest and read a book all afternoon.
We landed in a new country, so I didn’t try to tweak anything in my day and just enjoyed that it was warmer than in Sydney and it was still Sunday.
We booked a nice bungalow right on the water. That place was like one of the pictures from my vision board. Even though I did work the first 3.5 days, I was so happy to just sit there on the veranda at the table with one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen.
Another question, I recently came across was this: What day in your life that you wish to repeat without changing anything?
I looked back and found that the majority of my days would be: yes, I’d love to repeat that day but… How can we live our lives without later regretting what we’ve done or what we haven’t done?
You probably heard the story of the nurse who was looking after the people in palliative care. People regretted not having done something rather than what they had done.
I’m not trying to say that we have to do something every day. How can I? Yesterday I binged on The Americans, followed by my favourite Friends. I could have probably watched the whole course on marketing my book but I only watched two short lessons. I don’t believe we have to be productive all the time. In fact, I believe that sometimes we need to do nothing to be more productive later on.
I’m still figuring out how to not regret things. I started saying a mantra “I don’t do regrets”. I learned from Marie Forleo, that when we say “I don’t do something”, it is more powerful than “I can’t do something”. For example, if you want to stop having sugar. If instead of saying: I can’t have any sugar, you say: I don’t eat sugar, you’re more likely to resist any temptations as you will feel more in control.
My other mantra is “I don’t do tired”. What about you? What would you like to be different in your life?
On the way back from Rarotonga, we didn’t have Sunday, as we left on Sunday morning and arrived on Monday lunchtime. Is there a day that you wish you would miss entirely? I have some. But… I don’t do regrets, right?
“There are no regrets in life,
just lessons”
~ Jennifer Aniston