That Damn Routine
Every Wednesday I publish my entry here at 3by9 and when I tossed the idea about the site to Mike and Tyme part of it involved only writing one entry per week so we could establish a rhythm and not get overloaded. Also included was that sometimes we will do a podcast and if we did we would do it on a Thursday. So far we haven’t missed any entries and I think only one week has gone by without a podcast. We seem to have fallen into our routine and it is working.
I fucking hate routines.
What sucks is that it seems routines are essential to life. I can’t say I hate all routines because I fall into so many that when they are fun they are no longer routines. Every weekend you go out to the point you get bored of going out because it has become routine. Go to bed in the wee hours of the morning because over the years your body has become accustomed to it. Making lunch the first meal of the day. All of these are routines and yet I never complain about them.
When we fall into a routine it can be a good thing because you know you are getting the job done (hopefully effectively). Tyme is great at following routines. Mike and myself? Not so much. Maybe if I didn’t catch Mike in his early years when he was still a twinkle in his father’s eye he would be more like Tyme, but I think my influence of hating things has rubbed off on him to the point where we would probably run over a unicorn with our car and pray that fairies came to save it so that we may spray them with RAID.
In life, business and relationships you need a routine for stability. Sure you can deviate every once in a while or completely change the routine to shake things up, but overall there is always a routine. How often though do we get sick of the routine? I know I am not the only one.
- Same tasks at work.
- Same lunch with the same people.
- Same dinner with the wife.
- Same sex with the wife.
- Same bridge club on Wednesday nights.
- Same bar on Fridays.
What’s scary is even when we hate the routine we may be so scared to change it because that is all we know. My bad habit is changing routines without giving it any thought as to whether I am better off with the new routine. Sometimes it works out great and other times it is a complete disaster. I learn something new either way it seems and that is usually that I will always be sticking to the routines I like till I am sick of them and ditching the ones I hate.
What scares me the most is that the older I get the more routines play a larger role in my life. Not sure what to do about that or if I should just lay down and accept the fact that it is happening. Either way I will curse the routine and toss up a middle finger, while turning a blind eye to the fact that I’ve hit the same club on a Friday night for the past 378 weeks.
Routines need to understand that when they are good for me they can stay and when they suck they can go bother someone else. I just don’t have the time for them because I have to be at my weekly movie night with my boys this Thursday.