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Two years ago in December, a local health club sent me a flyer with the headline “Disrupt Your Routine.” I quickly grasped the sales pitch, which was to kick old habits and start a better exercise program for the new year. It’s an idea that has obvious value in Louisiana, where we all know we face particular challenges when it comes to diet and exercise.
Even so, I found that being urged to disrupt my routine was more than just a little off-key. Back then, we were just emerging from the pandemic protocols that endlessly disrupted routine. What I really want, most importantly, is to get at least some of my daily activities back.
I had just started a new job when the lockdown started. Our family has overcome these obstacles with the rest of the world, and we feel fortunate that we have not developed serious health problems and continued to work.
The past year has brought many blessings to our family, although it was by no means routine. Our daughter got married, which I would describe as a hurricane of happiness because it brought joy to our family and a commotion to the basic patterns of our lives.
Wedding week remains in memory as a weird, dreamy time as the various parts of the wedding party cycle through our house. Our daughter lost her retainer in the scuffle and it inexplicably turned up in a gift bag a few days later. I lent out my car keys that week and they too were temporarily lost, although we eventually found them in a half-eaten bag of potato chips.
It all feels a bit surreal, but then again, life in the larger world still feels less than mundane—often in dark ways that the most casual glance of headlines quickly reveals. come out.
As 2023 rolls around, day jobs sound appealing to me. One of my favorite observations on this subject comes from the late author May Sarton, who argued that “routine” doesn’t necessarily mean “boring.” Sutton puts it this way: “I know, from watching my dad put in the incredible amount of work he’s done day after day, year after year, how supportive a routine is, the spirit is How to move freely in it, like it is in a modest New England church Routine is not a prison, but a way out of the bondage of time. Apparently measured time has immeasurable spaces in it, and in that it is akin to music .”
Sutton’s argument that accepting routine in moderation can be a form of liberation got me thinking about why regular routines are so important in a monastery. Unfettered by too much thinking about what to do next or where to do it, the mind can focus on higher things.
While monastic life isn’t for me, I’m hoping, unbelievably perhaps, that the 2023 seasons will be easier to plan for and the timing more predictable.
Routine can feel heavenly at this point.
Email Danny Heitman danny@dannyheitman.com.
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