For reasons of which I am not entirely aware, I decided to go cold turkey vegetarian this past December. Of course the first things I noticed were the usual: weight loss, less sleep, better GI system, etc. As I adjusted to my new lifestyle, however, a more subtle change began to emerge. With the limited vegetarian options both at the store and in restaurants, I was forced to start actually thinking about what I eat. Not only did I have to avoid meat and it by-products, but I also had to carefully watch my intakes so as not to fall short on key nutrients. Over time, I became more and more aware of what foods I was eating, rather than mindlessly grazing as I had done in years past. Trips to the store suddenly became more focused and planned; I actually started making lists! Eating out became a luxury to be used prudently. In short, I finally became aware of the eating experience, and in doing so managed to both maximize enjoyment and health, whilst minimizing costs.
Now, you may be wondering why I'm rambling on about my eating habits on a blog supposedly dedicated to programming? Well, shortly after realizing all the benefits that I reaped from a simple deprivation in my diet, I decided to see whether it worked in other aspects of my life. Naturally my first instinct was to turn to my Computing habits. What could I limit myself from? For starters, I turned off my mouse. For one whole day, I vowed to navigate entirely via keyboard. 24 hrs later, I was zipping through windows, tabs, and hot-keys faster than ever. Already a simple deprivation had forced me to assess my habits and optimize. My next goal was to do a weeks worth of coding entirely within the terminal, full on Unix-style. While my productivity certainly took a hit, and I ended up with code that had bugs crawling out of the woodwork, I emerged with a whole host of new tricks and a great appreciation for OSX's Unix underpinnings.
