Breaking up the routine

Having a routine is useful as it gives us plenty of structure, maintains us on a steady path and doesn’t continually forces us to re-invent ourselves. As we get older, though, routines become much harder to change, break or add-on to. 

I’m not talking about changing elements that are forced on us by age, like “I stop hang-gliding or rock-climbing!” but more by less obvious, destructive habits, like tending a vegetable that has become too much work, living in a house that is now unmanageable or sticking to a dubious hobby that’s a waste of time. 

We become caged-up by them and it helps, from time to time, to review and question everything we do. This, of course, is much easier said than done, as routine is so comfortable that, deep inside, we don’t want to change a bit of it. 

Yet, as we change throughout our lives, we should always check our “operating system”, not so much as a way to improve it, but to see what’s wrong with it, useless, passé or of course detrimental or even dangerous to us. 

How do we start inspecting what populates our days? By taking a critical look at everything we do and ask ourselves, “What am I missing? What do I do wrong? Do I still need doing this or that? Would I be more at peace or relieved without that way of proceeding?” 

Obviously, the list of question we can ask ourselves and the facets of our lives we can change are endless, but unless we consider the process, our entire way of life might slowly become obsolete and unpleasant to manage...