Knight
This morning, like most mornings, Becky and I start by sitting down with our coffees at the kitchen table. “How’d you sleep?” we ask each other as we wake into the day. After a time she makes a small breakfast while I prepare the seed, suet and hummingbird nectar and walk them outside for our feathered companions. Back inside, I refill my cup and we begin our morning readings: Some scripture, a daily news website, and perhaps an interesting article or two. At the quarter hour, we switch on the TV to catch a local weather update and then switch it right off. Thus unfolds our morning routine.
The word “routine” came to me as I was hanging a bird feeder on the shepherd’s hook. I was remembering the answers a granddaughter, and two nieces gave when we asked them how their first week of the elementary school year went and what they learned. “Eh, Okay,” all of them answered. “Okay” seems to be the default response when adults ask anything about school. “We didn’t learn anything, though. All we did was hear about the rules.”
As two former educators, we felt we needed to mention that usually, the first week of school is the time when teachers make clear the goals of the class, establish procedures and describe expected behaviors. Or, as some might say, lay down the “rules.” A classroom usually works well when there are rules and routines.
I continued thinking about routines. The good thing about routines is they help me negotiate some of life’s day-to-day tasks without wasting time thinking about them. The not-so-good thing is the mindlessness of routines which can cause unnecessary problems.
More than once I have been driving on a route so familiar I could, as they say, “drive it with my eyes closed.” The problem comes when I am heading to a slightly different destination than the place on this route to which I would normally drive. My mind goes on auto-pilot, focused on other concerns, and I wind up nearly pulling in the usual place before I remember I was supposed to make a turn to get to my intended new destination.
Helpful routines are usually about relatively small matters. You drink your morning coffee before you make your breakfast. You wash your face, put on sunscreen, and brush your teeth—in that order. You put the car keys in the same place every time you come in the house. Your family eats tacos every Tuesday. In the evening, you go through the nighttime rituals as you prepare to crawl into bed.
Psychologists tell us routines are a series of habits that can bring order and predictability to our lives. They tell us routines can be healthy. They tell us putting our lives on routine autopilot can free up our creativity. Paradoxically, though, they tell us that when a routine becomes too comforting, it may inhibit creativity and discourage us from opening up to new experiences.
I ask myself: Do my routines serve my needs or are they preventing me from the enjoyment of being in the moment or from discovering new ways of seeing things? Are they comforting or confining? Especially as I get older, I can understand that the comfort of routine could easily devolve into rigid behaviors that I want to protect, sometimes aggressively, when they are disrupted. I pray I will be able to resist such negative attitudes.
So, when for some reason I can’t have my morning coffee on time or carry out my other regular plans, I hope I will try to see it as an opportunity to challenge my assumptions of what a morning should be. I will try to go with the flow of life unexpected.
I am sure the birds at the feeders will understand.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
