Rhythms or Routines

The other day I posted about my work day having a kind of gentle rhythm to it which flowed well like Jimi Hendrix playing...fluid, loose and oh so cool on the guitar.

Perhaps it would be good to explore further this concept of Rhythm and Routine.

I have routines. A routine in the strictest sense of the word is a regular but fixed set of processes that achieve a goal. I do all sorts of things that might be considered routines.

However, I balk at anything being static in my life. I don't like feeling trapped or being stagnated by my own routines!

So I've watched myself "doing" my routines and have found they aren't really routines so much as Rhythms. A rhythm is more flexible and fluid in its expression. I may do my usual daily activities out of sync but they still get done all the same to my own inner rhythm.

There is something freeing about set routines becoming rhythms. I get more done when a task or an activity is based on rhythm rather than dogmatic routine. There is a kind of ebb and flow to rhythm that is absent from mere routine. Mere routine is mundane and mindless, a kind of "You Must Do This, THIS way, All the Freaking Time" thing. I hate that! I will not be told what I must do by anyone - least of all by my own dogmatic consciousness! :)

But when those dogged, rigid routines flow like the gentle rhythm of the tide in an ocean; when they move, change, morph, and transmogrify; when they define by loose and flexible "might do" attitudes - then that appeals to me and I will follow when and if I feel like it.

Its like a flowing dance of choice with ones "stuff to do" rather than a mantra that must be recited daily in precise and contingent order.

So I have Rhythms to my day even though to you they might look like mere routines :)

How you live your life - even in the details - is always your choice.