The Beauty and Destructiveness of Monotony

When I think about the past... what is it? 9 months. When I think about the past nine months there’s two big things that come to mind, growth and destruction. I have grown so much in such a short period of time, I can’t even recognize myself from a year ago. But I’ve also been thrown down into some of the deepest and darkest places. What perplexes me though is that I’ve spent nearly every day of the past nine months doing the exact same thing. So how have I flourished some days and yet been demolished other days, when all of my days have been the same? 

I think the answer to that question can be found in the repetitiveness and monotony of life right now. Doing the same thing every day is so discouraging, especially as a teenager. You know absolutely everything that is going to happen and there’s barely any way for you to add variety to your life. I could spell out my schedule for probably all of the days in the next month very clearly. I think I would be fine with how monotonous I find my life if it wasn’t for social media. In fact, I wouldn’t find my life monotonous at all if social media simply didn’t exist. With social media I suddenly see that some people are finding ways to be productive, go on adventures, and not necessarily live a normal life but live a life with more spontaneity and variety. 

So I decided to try and see what was eating away at me in a completely different light. I wanted to switch my perspective and paint my dull routine in an aesthetically beautiful way. What you see below is some of my daily life captured over a period of about a week. Whenever I found myself doing something that I tend to do quite often I reached for my camera to snap a picture. This project has also helped me to rediscover the joy in all of these things I do (though looking at Harry Styles’ vogue issue has always brought me joy.) There are many similarities across the days, even more that didn’t make the cut, but that’s okay. 

Monotony is okay, repetition is okay, feeling like your life is boring or bland at the moment is okay. Not everything every day has to be different and exciting. You don’t have to constantly be doing something. Life isn’t always go go go, life can be as slow paced as you want. How much you do or how much variety you have in your life does not equate to your worth in any way. Especially now, staying home or what my Capricorn sun brain likes to call “doing nothing” is saving lives. We are young, and we might feel like we’re missing out on so much right now but we will triumph over this eventually and gloriously seize our time back.