THE WISDOM OF ROUTINE
“I’m hoping my routine will
break me out of my rut.
If I keep spinning my wheels,
I’m bound to become a bicycling champion.”
Over the last year there has been so much
construction work on the house, and so many contractors executing it; coming
and going and coming back again. Much of what was being done was planned by us,
and yet as the work progressed on our 93-year-old house, it became apparent
that in order to create what we had designed, previous poor construction had to
be undone before new construction could be accomplished.
Etc., etc. …
The main disruption has been my routine.
I count on a certain routine. Not a drudgery of imposed rigidity, rather a dependable
and comforting understanding of a few things in the day going the way I expect,
grounding me for the many unexpected things that are bound to emerge in the
most ordered of lives.
I didn’t give it too much credence until
about the last month, when I noticed my resilience had thinned – dramatically.
I could tell by how little patience I had, and how I had become very demanding
and resentful. It struck me that my schedule was not my own – my schedule was
dictated by contractors and vendors who seemed to think that my life was
waiting on hold to hear what their next need was. (Who’s paying who?!)
So I emerge, with this renewed
appreciation for routine. I see now that routine can lend a goodly amount of
ballast to the life, and when we can count on a routine, less energy is spent
figuring out how certain parts of the day will go – and so there is a goodly amount
of freedom to be had as well!
And things get dome! With routine, the
daily necessary tasks of life get accomplished, instead of slipping through the
moments of unscheduled time when something spur of the moment calls and seduces
us into its importance.
And then there is more time for
unscheduled time – when creativity can gather substance, and daydreaming can
bring insight, and sitting quietly can allow for genius.
Like becoming a bicycling champion.
