The Power of Routine

Routine is a powerful tool. By adjusting your routine, you can insert a great deal more of you do want in your life, while excluding a great deal of what you don't.

William James, the American psychologist of religion, wrote:

The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. 

So instead of expending the effort every day to rein in your road rage during the afternoon commute, why not take a bus home instead? You may find yourself at least a little calmer day to day. Or rather than hemming and hawing every night, when you sit down at the TV, whether to eat some ice cream while you watch, why not stop buying the ice cream in the first place? Or better yet, why not turn off the TV, since the TV tends to makes us lonely and hungry, and go walking in the evenings with someone you love, or even just like, instead?

Research really does suggest that human willpower that's given a pink slip in one place can be employed elsewhere, on a different job: everything from biting your tongue when your brother talks politics (it's necessary sometimes) to working toward some long wonderful project that requires the steady application of diligence, say planting a flower garden, or keeping a journal, or playing Candy Land with your five-year-old.

Regular readers of Nine Volt probably tend to find me a little too full of expectations for the world. I seem to ask too much of people. To demand that they change more than they really can. And it's true: many of us are barely managing to stay afloat. We fall out of love. We get sick with cancer. We argue with our spouses about money. We yell at our kids and feel bad about it. There isn't always vision or energy left for planting vegetables. Or canning tomatoes every August. Or shucking walnuts. Or whatever other tom fool thing the sustainable living folks are recommending today. Living in reality. Staying at home. Appreciating the small. 

I'm no stranger to these questions. And I understand that we all make our compromises with reality. But I do want to say this to the naysayers: Try. Start somewhere. Make at least one good thing in your life, newly a matter of routine. You may be surprised at how fast the happy changes accumulate. And you may never go back.

HB