As I mentioned in my last post, this week’s theme is:  The Quirks of Daily Routine.  I say quirks here because what is normal for some, may seem absolutely crazy to others.  From the moment you wake up until the moment you rest your head on the pillow each night, you follow certain patterns or routines. I had never really given the subject much thought until this past week when a friend and neighbor posted a question on Facebook about whether there were others out there, like herself, who put socks and shoes on in the order-sock, shoe, sock, shoe.

**Click the picture above for the link to the video clip!

This post soon blew up, mostly with comments calling my friend and her routine insane.  Time and again, she stood her ‘one socked and shoed’ ground, deflecting all the negative comments with humor and many smiley emojis ☺☺.

Even when a friend challenged her by discussing the dangers of her routine, she did not falter.  The question was posed, “If a fire or other emergency were to occur in the middle of your one-at-a-time foot-dressing, wouldn’t it be dangerous if only one of your feet were protected from the cold and dirty ground when you ran outside to safety?”

A valid point, I thought.  But my friend adeptly dealt with this scenario stating that because her one foot was so well protected with both sock AND shoe, she could stand on that foot, like a flamingo and hop to safety. She further argued that at least she would have one dressed and protected foot whereas everyone else would soon have two cold feet in their single sock layer!

After reading her comments, I was intrigued by this sock-shoe dilemma so I turned to the one source that is always there for me when I am faced with life’s big questions…Google!  It turns out this very debate was first exposed in an episode of the 1970’s hit comedy, All in the Family. In the episode titled, Gloria Sings the Blues, Archie Bunker tries to correct his son-in-law, Michael (Meathead), who puts his sock and then shoe on one foot. Like my friend, Meathead is left defending his routine up until the time Archie storms out of the room ordering him to start doing it the “right way.”

Which leads me to the bigger question here…who decides what the right and wrong way is to put on your socks and shoes?  Or the direction you load the toilet paper?  Or the way you live your life?

At the end of the day, the only person that can decide the right way is YOU.  People may not like your choices or decisions.  They may call you crazy and criticize your ways. But you keep doing you and face that criticism with humor and lots of smiley emojis ☺☺

And if the negative energy the nay-sayers send your way start to bring you down, you just hop, like a flamingo, as far away from them as you can. Your one strong, protected foot will carry you further in life because you are not afraid to do things YOUR way,