Musical Accompaniment: It Hurts Me Too by Tampa Red.
Disrupting your habits and habitual thinking on occasion is very good for you. It stimulates your brain and takes you off autopilot. Effects range from increased creativity and confidence to feeling more mindful and alert.
It’s fairly easy to disrupt your habits and it doesn’t have to be a dramatic or strenuous change. I’m right-handed but occasionally I try to rely solely on my left hand for a day. It’s difficult to remember all day but it’s an effective means of disruption. Some easier disruptions could be taking a different route to your usual destination, wearing your watch on the opposite wrist, or moving a familiar object to a new place.
In honor of this idea, each picture in this post contains something that’s out of place.
A Zeppelin hovering between a pyramid and the Sphinx.
A little girl playing with her doll next to two guns and a knapsack in Reims, France during the Great War.
Archive.org
Wilbur Wright circling the Statue of Liberty on September 29, 1909!
Wikimedia
By the way, if you ever find that you’re really in a rut, I highly recommend the book Ask Yourself a Better Question by Dre Baldwin. It’s marketed to athletes and entrepreneurs but I’ve given copies to so many people and they all found something in it that helped them. It’s a short book but it will definitely change your thinking!
What do you do to break out of your habits?
old spirituals 
every day I take pictures of things that catch my eye. Before I go to sleep i I save the best and delete the rest. good way to break through creative blocks
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Ruby, in my youth, my hobby was photography. I enjoyed a very early morning drive on Saturday through the rural countryside looking for the perfect landscape photo. So I relate to capturing an eye catching scene or object.
For a time, my son took photos of neglected or abandoned basketball backboards and rims he came across in suburban Chicago. The variety is amazing. An exhibition would attract many.
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that’s a terrific idea!
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Everyone should use their non-dominant hand more often because the day may come when you forced to use it as your only useable hand, as I was recently after shoulder surgery. Ever try buckling a car’s seat belt with your non-dominant hand?. It’s an experience!!!!
In college a biology professor of mine stood in the middle of the chalkboard with a chalk in each hand. He never moved from his spot but wrote left-handed and then changed to his right, filling the board with information. The class was impressed with his ambidexterity so he explained how he became ambidextrous. A very bad broken arm put him in a cast for many months, thus forcing him to write with his non-dominant hand to take notes in class, etc.
If you play a musical instrument that requires the use of both hands, you may have a leg up in becoming ambidextrous.
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This is fascinating stuff! I looked it up and injury is the second most likely reason for a person to be ambidextrous. The first is cultural preference for right-handedness. Second was injury adaptation. It totally makes sense!
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I am convinced I should be left-handed and not right. I was forced to use my right hand by religious teachers my first day of school. The other tell-tale sign is that my dominant eye is my left. I used a rifle aiming with my left eye.
Starting drum lessons at age 14 forced me to use both hands and feet independently. Also, learning to type developed further independence of hands and fingers. But writing requires a more complex dexterity, the coordination of small muscles in the hands and fingers needed to control the pen’s movement, pressure and letter forming. Despite my independence of hands, my writing is best when I use my lifelong dominant right hand.
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I love both of Ruby’s idea and yours! I’d go to that exhibition.
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My son-in-law exhibits and sells his photographs of unusual signs, doors and mid-century architecture. I love photography like this.
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Not only is he a photographer, he is also a Historian. Capturing mid-century architecture is a way of recording history.
I compare may days of doing photography, particularly when I moonlighted as a wedding photographer, to the modern digital age of photography. For me it is like comparing Stone Age writing on cave walls to using Microsoft Word.
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that sounds cool!
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Wedding photography makes for a very long day. I had a full-time M-F job but did the photography on weekends for a studio.
After years of doing wedding photography I concluded there are four (4) irrefutable facts: All brides are not happy or nice people on their wedding day; the mother of the bride can be the most challenging person to work with at the wedding; some families have unusual wedding day traditions; and, family and friends at a wedding when alcohol is served can be embarrassing for the bride and groom. The cost is not the only reason why large formal weddings are not in vogue today.
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I bet you’ve got some great stories
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Indeed I do. Some funny, some scary.
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I, too, use my left hand to mix things up a little. I also do different needlework techniques to protect my hands from injury as well as introducing a little variety.
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Do you ever try to write with your left hand? Even my regular handwriting is shameful. My left-handed writing resembles a mysterious hieroglyphic 😂
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No, I haven’t tried writing left handed. I guess I should try. I like to use my left hand to operate my tablet and computer aside from the obvious typing.
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I struggle to even type only with my left hand. The good thing is that all of my messages are much more succinct!
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