We usually try to avoid the routine and consider it the number one enemy in career, relationships, and everything that means exciting life. Monotony is bad, and something spiced or fireworks sounds better, right? Not necessarily and not always.
Speaking recently to a friend, I realized that perhaps we should not look at the routine with disdain.
1. Routine helps us to change.
It sounds paradoxical, but to replace old habits with new ones we need consistency over time, most of the time. Sustainable changes do not happen overnight, whether it's 30 minutes to meditate, eat more vegetables or move. We all have to get used to it. And this is done gradually, with daily small gestures on the thread of the daily newspaper. Sometimes more shy, sometimes with enthusiasm, so that at the end we can get a necklace we proudly wear. At some point, we even get to forget that we still have it, so familiar it has become.
2. Routine takes a moment to make decisions.
When we are too tired to make choices, the routine takes our arms and sucks. In the morning, even though I'm half asleep, I eat, get dressed and then I run out without thinking. Because it's already a routine. Similarly, when I put my headphones with a relaxing playlist and I get more work done because I got used to doing that. It's comfortable to act out of inertia without bothering your head with philosophical or everyday dilemmas. Routine sinks us in a pleasant habit, like in a soft mattress whose familiar smell relaxes us immediately. Sure, it would be boring to stay there forever, but let's not forget the importance of rest.
3. Routine makes us feel we have control.
We know what's going to happen, and that's what makes us calm. At least when it comes to the small boxes of life, if the great actions or events remain outside our sphere of influence. No matter how big the adventurers give us, the need for safety is there, and we get our sleeve.
4. But perhaps the most beautiful gift of the routine is that we have something to break from time to time.
It's the merit of the routine when we are enjoying a relaxing weekend after a week in which we worked continuously, according to the same schedule. How would routine get out if ... we had nothing to get out of here? I think this is the great merit of the routine: it gives us the security of the habit of packing with the satisfaction that if we overcome it, from time to time, something magical will happen.