There is an episode of Scrubs where the hospital janitor installs a toilet on the roof of the hospital. All the characters do their business up their and have epiphanies. The shower is my version of the epiphany toilet.
My morning routine always includes a shower. Partially because an obsession of feeling clean, but mainly as a time to both reflect and plan for the future. A lot of my ideas are formed in the shower (even this blog post). It’s the one time of day I can block out all other noise without feeling rushed.
Standing and Thinking
From John Durant’s The Paleo Manifesto
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), American poet. Longfellow was the first American to translate Dante’s Divine Comedy, which he did while standing: “It was his habit during the boiling of his coffee-kettle, to work, at a standing-desk, upon a translation of Dante. So soon as the kettle hissed, he folded his portfolio,not to resume that work until the following morning. In this wise, by devoting ten minutes a day, during many years, the lovely work grew, like a coral reef, to its completion.”
Durant shares stories of many successful people who claimed their best thinking occurred while standing up. For me, standing is synonymous with thinking. Lately I’ve been using Google Keep as my notepad while walking, or standing on the bus. It allows me to think while jotting down my thoughts for blog posts, business ideas and other mental notes I want saved for later.
Finding the Spot
Standing in the shower gets my mind going. But I am on a constant search to find where epiphanies might happen next. Sitting at coffeeshops is good for shipping. Working around co-workers at a desk can be helpful for quick questions. Nothing has compared to the flourishing of my mind while in the shower. I am continually looking for the spot that’ll create epiphanies for me.