On the Power of Routines
Caption: Joseph Vernet, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
After a recent crisis, I have come to appreciate the power of routines and the discipline it cultivates in daily life. I wanted to share what I learnt here so that anyone else out there could learn this lesson without having to go through hardship themselves.
Routines aren’t important right? RIGHT?
I usually start work these days around 09:30. This is so that I can first do my morning routine, which comprises of two parts. The first part at home which includes making coffee, meditating and reading. Then part two (3/5 days a week) involves going to the gym for a relatively short 20 minute workout.
But when my parents came for a short visit to my home to attend a cousin’s engagement celebration, I decided that my morning routine and some other routines were trival enough to forego while they were here.
So during their stay, I decided to wake up early enough to start work at 07:00 instead. This meant I could finish work earlier in the day, allowing me extra time to spend with my parents. But it also meant that I was not able to do my normal routine.
Stormy seas
The one constant in our every changing world is that we will experience suffering in one way, shape or form. It could be as trivial as the suffering of not getting your parcel. Or it could be as life-defining as the one I was in store for.
Unbeknownst to me, life had other plans for me for the duration of my parent’s visit. I had to deal with a family conflict far greater than one my mind was equipped to handle.
To say that it has been the darkest days of my life so far seems like a gross understatement. Every single day felt like being in a proverbial warzone.
Each day my mind was being stress tested to the limit and just as I would try to catch a break, I was bombarded with more and more to deal with.
The end result of all of these were countless panic attacks, restarting an undesirable habit I had kicked a long time ago, babling and not forming sentances in heated conflicts, and fighting the urge to take the easy way out.
To recap, I had stopped all activities that nourished me and gave me strength to take on everyday life challenges in a time when I needed it the most. And the effects it was having on me were pretty apparent.
Crisis survival guide: brought to you by TonyTriesStuff
Having suffered a fair deal in my own life through crises that range from dealing with extortionary parking ticket fines (trivial) to dealing with raging and uncertainty filled family conflicts (not so trivial), it’s fair to say that I have attained some experience of dealing with crises.
In addition, I have consumed a fair bit of books and other media around the topic of getting through life crises. Books on crisis, buddism, stoic philosophy and more.
And the most compelling and useful bit of advice I have come across so far comes from Phil Stutz in his book Lessons for Living.
In the chapter Staying on Track, Phil asks us to imagine a squigly and uneven circle, which he says represents the woes and troubles that concern us in everyday life. And in the area created by the squigly circle, Phil asks to us imagine a perfect square such that no part of the square touches the squigly circle.
He says that our discipline towards ourselves (which come in the form of keeping a structured routine, saying no to negative impulses and expanding our world view) is the square in the middle, and our everyday problems are the squigly bit around it.
As long as we stay disciplined (keeping our square nice and strong), we are able to take whatever life throws at us. Come rain come sunshine, we are in a position to deal with the situation.
Sketch 1: What it looks like to be disciplined
The second we stop being discipined, so too does our ability to deal with all the conflict that surrounds. He sees this as the square within breaking down and the situation overwhelming us to the point of burnout.
Sketch 2: What happens when we are not disciplined
Therefore, in order to deal with the endless crises and problems that life throws at us on a regular basis, we need to cultivate and nurture discipline in our day-to-day lives.
This lesson was very apparent in my own crisis described earlier. I can say without a question that I did not have the discipline to keep structure in my life, control my negative impulses or expand my world view.
Without intending to, I let go of my discipline. As a result, I was unable to take what life threw at me. I was much like the second sketch showing my problems (squigly circle) overwhelming my ability to cope (square).
Therefore, I have made a decision to keep up my discipline and cultivate a strong and healthy square, such that no matter what the problem of the day is, my mind feels capable of dealing with it.
Sketch 3: what building resilience with our discipline looks like
What that discipline looks like will vary from person to person. To me, it’s my routines which gives me a great sense of structure around my life, saying no to impulses that I know won’t serve me in the long run and to try new things and grow my skillset in various disciplines.
In doing those things, I hope that during my next crisis — which I know is just around the corner — my ability to cope with it will be better than the last one that came before it.
I hope this post was helpful in some way. It was not easy sharing this post but I do feel like its one that deserves to be out there and one that has a potential to impact the lives of people going through a similar fate as me.