Live an Alternate Reality of Your Own Life
Have you ever thought about what you would do in your life if you didn’t live the one you are currently living? All Matrix jokes aside, it’s really not that far away. I’m not talking about dropping your entire family and running off to join a circus or become an anonymous waitress in another town—though I do know that many people dream of such things! I am talking about simply incorporating things that you wish you had into your life.
One of my favorite things that I took from The Artist’s Way was making lists of different occupations that I would love to pursue—anything from being a painter to a singer to a cryptozoologist (don’t judge; yours are probably just as weird and wacky as mine!). Then, you select one, and list five things that someone who has that job might do in his or her life, and then you pick one thing from that list and incorporate it into your life somehow.
I chose the cryptozoologist job, of course, and was then excited to do research on all kinds of cryptids and creatures, both online and at the library. I would have loved to do a field study—and maybe I still will one day—but just doing that made me feel so alive, like I was actually studying something that amazing and strange.
So how about it? Why not add a few things from another reality of your life into your current lifestyle? I am sure that whatever you think of could be incorporated. Even if you chose to be a serial killer—and I hope you don’t fully flesh out that dream, mind you—you could still research serial killers, or butcher watermelons and hide them in the backyard or something. I only use this gruesome suggestion as an example because I don’t think there is any dream that could not be broken down into tiny doable parts that you can actually engage in your present life—such as taking a circus class or a cooking class, regarding the examples above—if you’re only creative enough to try it.
And if you truly want to just disappear somewhere, you could always just get a sitter and check into a hotel for a night, or even a whole weekend—it will probably be just what you need to charge your batteries back up and get back into the swing of things.
