Oh, the same old...

The other day I called up an old friend of mine, someone I hadn't spoken to for months. After the initial awkwardness, as the ice had begun to thaw, when I asked her how her life was going, the response was a dry - "Oh... the same old routine... office-home-office...".
The call didn't last longer than a couple of minutes.

Just two days back, I bumped into an old colleague of mine while lining up for hakka noodles at the office cafeteria. We had worked together in a project for more than a year before moving on to different groups. I casually asked, "How's work going?". "Oh.. the same old stuff..." he said, looking clearly bored.
I hoped the noodles would come soon.

Ask a high school student how he feels about life and most of them have this (or something similar) to say - "The same old stupid classes, silly teachers, nagging parents, boring food...oh.. the same old everything...".
Wisdom lies in not taking the conversation any further.

In one of my bad moods, as I was flipping the channels on the TV remote, foolishly hoping that Shahrukh Khan would pop out of the idiot box and say something nice and charming to me, I heard a socialite announce on one of the lifestyle channels, "Oh... we simply dash off to the Maldives everytime we get fed up with the same old place...".
I switched the television off.

Monotony. How we sometimes hate this word!

I thought about this a long time. And bored and irritated as I myself was with the "same old" responses, I decided to consciously look for monotony in the world around me.

Something that was so easy to complain about was suddenly difficult to key out and tag. (But I don't give up easily once I catch a bug like that.)

To begin with, we see the "same old" sunrise and sunset every single day of our lives and never care to thank God for it...

The "same old" notes (seven to be exact) keep repeating themselves in some pseudo-aritho-geometric progression to fill our lives with melody...

It is the "same old" stitches that repeat themselves in boring white threads to make delicate, beautiful lace patterns...

The "same old" ingredients in the "same old" measured proportions repeat themselves in sumptuous recipes that pass from one generation to another...

Can you blame a workman for being upset when his tools are not in their "same old" places...

Who can ever get tired of the "same old" routine of tucking a four year child to bed each night and getting a big noisy kiss in return...

And not to forget the devastation of not finding your desk on the "same old" seventeenth floor of the "same old" NYC tower on the eleventh of a September?

Suddenly, "same old" life was no longer boring. Predictability seemed like a blessing, routine became discipline and familiarity sounded friendly.

Now when someone tells me their life is full of the "same old stuff", I quietly whisper "Amen".