Show Some Guts!
I’ve asked before in this blog forum, “Have you ever found it interesting that everyone wants to change the world…but no one wants to change?”
Humans are creatures of habit. As creatures, we have basic survival needs, food, water, shelter. In terms of cognitive thinking, we are at the top of the animal kingdom. Refined as we are, intelligent and social as we are, we’re still animals. As refined, intelligent, social creatures who have created this multi-faceted existence here on earth, we have to form habits and routines that become almost autonomic just to survive. Our daily requirements are such that, in our fast-paced societies, we would wither without routine. There are things we need to do each and every day; things we don’t want to have to think about while we do them so we’re allowed to think of other things that are more important. The things that require active cognitive attention to be accomplished successfully.
We form these routines, we lock them in, and we stay there. We form patterns of behavior that we engage in and refine until they are time and cost effective; requiring a minimum of thought and action, getting us to our goal with the greatest expediency. We do this because it is not only expedient, it is also comforting. We all find comfort in regularity. Regularity means the routine of our lives is operating smoothly. The pattern of our existence is unbroken and needs little to no attention.
To put it bluntly, we live in love with our ruts! Most of us live the majority of our lives in a routine of ruts.
“But wait a minute,” you say. “Not all routines are ruts.”
I’ll give it to you that the word rut is an ugly word. It carries a negative connotation and not all routines are negative behaviors. But, it’s my contention that all routines can lead to negative behavior, because a routine is just that, a routine. It requires little to no thought, it’s easy because our muscle memory automatically defaults to a pattern of behavior that promotes laziness in thought and action.
I say, “Show some guts, chuck the ruts!”
