Mrs. Denmarkguy and I just finished drinking our afternoon coffee. It's part of our daily routine.
For about as long as we have known each other, somewhere between 4:30 and 6:30 in the afternoon we make ourselves a cup of coffee and sit down — usually on the back terrace — and take a break.
Colors of the season...
After I returned to my desk today, I got to reflecting on just how much our lives tend to be dominated by routines.
I thought about my parents, and their routines. Till the day my mom died, my mom and stepdad would always have "afternoon tea" (he was British) at around 5:00pm, give or take. After lunch on Saturdays and Sundays, they would always watch pro golf on TV.
Before that — when I was a small kid — my mom and dad would always sit down and have "drinks and chips" before dinner. That was their routine.
My auntie — the one who partially raised me — would always eat dinner at just after six so there would be time to eat, put things away and clean up, and then she would sit down to the Danish TV evening news which came on at 7:30. That was her routine.
Personally, I have always found a lot of comfort in routines. I know there's a segment of greater culture that insists that if we are in a routine we are somehow "stuck" there and our lives must be dull and lacking in spontaneity.
Whereas I do know people who try to live up to the ideal(?) of not having routines and always being spontaneous, my personal impression is that their lives are more about a state of uncontrolled chaos than they are about actual joyful spontaneity.
Frankly, I call bullshit on the whole "reject routines" notion.
The natural world that surrounds us — our planet, itself — encourages routines. Everything happens in more or less reliable cycles; from day and night, to four seasons, to longer days in the summer and longer nights in the winter. Routines are natural because we must observe routines if we are to — for example — grow food.
I think about our own routines here, as gently required by our small "urban homestead." During our "growing season" from April through September, we head out to our garden every day after breakfast to take care of what needs doing in the vegetable garden... and that is definitely a routine.
From where I am sitting, these are not negative things, and whatever motivational speakers might be encouraging to the contrary, we need routines in order to operate and navigate life in a decently functional manner.
Naturally changes happen WITHIN our routines, but we can't just escape routines. At least most of us can't. And I'm not part of that small segment of the world who regards every second of their existence as "performance art!"
There's a big difference between having routines in your life and being bored with your life... and the two don't necessarily overlap!
Thanks for reading and have a great week ahead!
How about YOU? What are the routines in your life? Do you generally try to avoid routine? Or do you embrace it? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210919 19:25 PDT
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