I can admit that I often get stuck in a rut and have a hard time imagining other ways of living.
I can very easily fall into regimented routines and assumptions about the best ways to complete tasks, simply because I never challenge my existing perceptions.
The older I get, the more I am realizing that having an open mind and looking for innovative solutions is a real benefit. For instance, for many years I have been battling my heating, cooling, and air quality control system in my house. I have a typical forced air furnace and large air conditioning system that are supposed to manage my indoor air temperature and air quality throughout the year. The massive ventilation systems always provided temperature change in accordance with the thermostat. Therefore, I never really thought about my existing heating, cooling, and air quality control equipment or the availability of alternative indoor air temperature control devices. It took several years before I learned about mini-split ductless heating and cooling systems and finally considered how these smaller indoor air temperature control units could be useful for my life, rather than operating a large centralized indoor air quality control plan. Since I have been rather exhausted by high energy bills, I decided that installing the heating and cooling systems would be a good experiment. What do you know, now I have advanced zone controlled temperature management throughout my entire house with less professional maintenance service appointments and lower energy bills. My house has never been so quiet and clean, and I wish I had discovered mini split ductless HVAC decades ago.