David Starbuck Smith

Try this tonight. Go back through your week and look for the last thing that felt new. A different running route, a conversation you didn't see coming, an emotion you haven’t felt for a long time. If you have to dig for it, that tells you something.

Routines do a lot for us, and I'm a fan of a good one. They give your day a spine and save you from deciding everything from scratch. They also get comfortable enough to turn into stuck, and then the routine itself becomes the place we sit. Most of us never decided to stay there. It happened one comfortable week at a time.

If you found something new, keep going. If you had to dig, that's useful to know, and it's the right place to start.