Fighting the Maddening Comfort of Routine

“I can't believe that we would lie in our graves
Wondering if we had spent our living days well
I can't believe that we would lie in our graves

Dreaming of things that we might have been”
Dave Matthews

Routine is good. It provides us predictability, structure and a certain semblance of control over our daily lives. We know where we have to be, most of the time, and we go there, do what we need to do and we’re done. It feels comforting when what you think is going to happen on that particular day actually happens like it’s supposed to happen. “Yup, I knew I had to do that today. I did it and it’s done.”

It’s the comfort we feel in the company of our family. In the familiar laughter of our children. In the warmth of our home on a cold winter’s night. Routine provides solace and centering in times of great despair. Times when the struggle is just too hard and we retreat into the sanctity of the familiar.

Routine is bad. It lulls us into a false sense of security. It makes us reluctant to branch out beyond our daily existence and try new things. It gives us a false belief that nothing exists beyond our little slice of the universe. It leads to closed thinking that often holds us back from trying something really different.

I fight this battle on a daily basis and I know others do too. There’s a part of me that enjoys my life, my job, my daily routines and feels just fine, thank you. The other part of me rages against the monotony. Tired of waging the same battles. Driving the same roads. Having the same arguments. Listening to the same people complain about the same problems. Fighting the good fight with little hope of affecting real change.

I’ll often tell my wife that I'm bored. Usually, I’m speaking metaphorically. It’s not that what I’m doing at that particular moment is making me bored. It’s just that what’s currently in my orbit is really not making life that exciting. Those who know me know that I’m the kind of person who needs a lot of carrots out there. Things around the bend to keep me moving toward tomorrow.

And that’s the challenge, the battle, really. To rage against the routine. To suck the most out of this life that we can. To find things in our lives that give us joy and excitement and pleasure and stimulation and challenge and meaning and exhilaration and a touch of danger and happiness and a feeling that we really are alive, damn it.

We. Really. Are. Alive.

It’s a battle we need to fight every day. . .