On breaking routine

I ended the "Facebook fast" Thursday afternoon, feeling good about the experience. Periodically deactivating it seems to help me focus, and remember positive reasons for why it's useful. Chiefly it helps me stay in touch friends who are now scattered across the country (and in some cases, the world). Sometimes the sheer volume of the site is overwhelming, and I just want to get away from it all for a few days, which is perhaps more like a holiday than a fast, but either works I suppose.

Curiously, deactivating Facebook forced me to forego the habit of checking it, or posting stories, quotes, or music I find on my "walks" through life and the Internet. This was difficult, but a bit exhilarating too because it forced me to think about things a bit differently, and as a result follow thoughts I hadn't before due to habit.

Does routine put our mind to sleep? It's possible, but I can imagine under some circumstances this could prove beneficial. For example, a pre-race routine might help a runner from over-thinking the coming race. Routine may also provide a sense of security for someone performing a complex task, such as catching multiple trains in succession. At first it might be hard to judge how fast one would need to walk to ensure making each train, but in time the routine might inspire confidence in the commuter that they'll make it without difficulty.

On the other hand routine can dull our sense of the familiar, and constrict our sense of the possible in any given moment. For instance, before I go to bed at night I brush my teeth and read a book until midnight. Just as easily I could listen to music, or perform some kind of physical exercise, mediation, or recite vocabulary terms of a foreign language. I could even do nothing at all, and just go to sleep. In short I could do any number of things, but instead I brush teeth and read. I see nothing wrong with that per say, but I wonder if changing things up from time to time might freshen my perspective, and may engender a greater appreciation of the acts I do just before bed.

Perhaps it would even make me more resilient (gasp!). In his Principles of Psychology (1890), William James implores us to, "...do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it." This can be hard advice to follow, but I suspect there's value in it. Discomfort--given the right measure and context--seems to encourage resiliency; it compels us to engage with change and the unfamiliar in ways we haven't done so before. In this way discomfort has utility, in that it forces us to wake up, take notice, and use our capacities (however limited) to make sense of novel tasks and situations.

Obviously some situations prove too stressful, and the utility is therefore lost. But breaking routine, or doing "something for no other reason than that [we] would rather not do it," may help us handle life's more stressful moments with greater poise and grace, which is precisely how Hemingway defined courage ("grace under fire"). It's not to say that occasionally discomforting ourselves will make us brave and resilient. But it does seem a way of keeping our perspective fresh, and routines fluid and adaptable rather than rigid and breakable, which if Lao Tzu is to be believed is a good thing, for, "The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail" (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 76). Something to ponder maybe.

Happy Saturday, friends :)