Might seem like a silly foundation for a life philosophy, but this is part of mine now:
Underwear and Earrings.
Did your mom teach you to change your underwear every day? Mine did. The reasons, I think, were for hygiene and respectability. It is what normal people do, what decent people do; the default for living according to established expectations.
Purposeful. Reasonable. Guidelines to protect from two different kinds of threats: disease and shame?
But I have amended my daily routine now, to include changing my earrings every day.
Every day.
And this habit, this decision of my own is about a different kind of expectation. Not the expectation that feels like restraint, that triggers anxiety. The kind of expectation that is anticipatory, optimistic, curious and hopeful.
Expectancy.
Believing that each day holds the possibility of delight and joy, or opportunities for creativity.
Regarding each day as a gift of time in which I can choose to experience happiness from beauty, art, aesthetics in many ways, even in the set of earrings I wear that day.
Do they have to be the perfect set of earrings?
They do not.
Do they have to match the clothing I am wearing?
They do not.
Do they have to be the earrings someone else thinks I should wear?
They do not.
I will
responsibly
change my underwear every day.
I will
joyfully
choose a pair of earrings to wear
every new day
of my days
remaining.