How I pick my toothpaste

This post is about one tiny action that recently put me on another trajectory. The story starts a few weeks ago, during the height (or the low point?) of my negativity spiral that prompted me to start my daily blog. I felt stuck and helpless. Whenever I am in a mood like this, all my self-doubts turn up their panic-inducing qualities and become paralysing. In these moments, it feels like I will never be able to fulfil my dreams, that progress is impossible and I'm doomed to perish by my procrastination. It was around that time that my toothpaste ran out.

Everybody has their brand of toothpaste they stick to, for one reason or another. Of course, it doesn't matter which toothpaste you are using. Yes, some may taste a bit different, have a different colour, or (probably the most important thing) a different packaging. But in the grand scheme of things, your choice of toothpaste is irrelevant. Still, we stick to our brand.

During the time I pick my own toothpaste, I was still living at home. Back then, we did most of our shopping in organic grocery stores. Due to this, the toothpaste I've been using in the past few years was only available in certain grocery store chains. A few months ago I moved to a flat in Berlin with no such store near me. So I went to a drugstore, looking for my toothpaste instead. I didn't have high hopes for this visit. And, as expected, my brand wasn't available. I left the store without buying any toothpaste.

Being back home, I still had almost no toothpaste left. I considered taking the subway and drive to a store about 20min from me, just to buy my usual brand. I didn't, because I found it just a tad too ridiculous. Rather, I went to the same drugstore again, to buy just any toothpaste. When I entered the store and stood in front of the shelf with all the toothpaste available, the number of choices overwhelmed me. So I left the store, again without buying toothpaste.

On my way back home, one thought came to my mind over and over again. How you do anything is how you do everything. And how could I expect my life to change, if I wasn't even able to change the choice of the toothpaste I was using?

After procrastinating on buying toothpaste for almost a week, I put an entry for it in my calendar, and went to the same drugstore, a third time. On my way there, I visualised how I would go to the shelf with the toothpaste (by now, I knew exactly where it was), pick one at random, go to the checkout counter, and leave again. This is exactly what I did. And let me tell you, I was never as elated about buying anything than about buying toothpaste at that day.

Everybody has their habits they cling to. A routine gives comfort. That's why breaking a habit is so uncomfortable. Change is always scary. The impact of the change doesn't matter. Even if it's an allround improvement and brings you closer to your dreams, it will still be scary. But small actions shape your identity, and how you do anything is how you do everything. And sometimes, all you need to feel is that change is possible.

You can read this story as a metaphor for the impact of small actions that mean very little in isolation. This doesn't change that this story happened exactly as I described it here. And I'm sure that I will never again but the same toothpaste I used before.