It is easy to imagine. The alarm is blaring, your body is heavy, it is Monday morning, and all you want to do is stay under the covers and sleep until Friday afternoon. You manage to stumble out of bed, into the bathroom, then into the kitchen for your morning toast and coffee. You scroll through the daily news while you finish your final sips then you dress yourself and make your way to work.
From morning to evening, we cannot help but find ourselves falling into routine ways of living. Most of the time, this habit of ours is harmless and completely unconscious. However, these routines mean more to us than we often realize. Part of the stress of moving, or starting a new job, is the disruption it brings to our established routines. Moreover, how often have you found yourself subtly agitated when someone inadvertently disrupts your long-established routine?
Since routine is such a common feature of human life, it is worth investigating how we can modify our routines to favour our happiness and wellbeing. Our days usually begin, and end, with routines and there are countless moments in our day that can develop into them. There are numerous ways to modify routines in favour of happiness, but I would like to suggest one simple way: shifting from routine to ritual.
On the surface, routines and rituals are actually quite similar. They are a set of behaviours or actions performed in a fixed and predictable way. However, we all know there is something deeper underlying ritual that sets it apart from routine. I would argue that the biggest differentiation between ritual and routine lies in one word, intention.
A good example of how intention creates ritual is the Japanese tea ceremony. In these ceremonies everything from the teaware to the setting of the ceremony is intentional. For example, guests must enter the teahouse on their hands and knees through a small door, which reinforces the equality of all in the teahouse. Regardless of status, everyone crawls (and must bow) to enter the tea house. Behind every act and behaviour in the tea ceremony is intention.
We all drink a hot beverage from time to time, many of us drink coffee or tea every morning, but how many of us drink with attention, care, and intention? Being intentional about our routine is a way for us to reframe our lives. Rather than seeing the morning coffee as another task to get through, we could instead consider the many hands that brought that cup of coffee to our lips from the farmers, to the pickers, to the distributors, manufacturers, and packagers. Or, we could choose to make the morning coffee a time for peace where we are free from screens and distractions for a little while and fully able to appreciate the preciousness of a hot cup of coffee.
There are an indefinite number of ways to shift our routines into rituals through intention. We hope this has inspired you to reconsider some of your routines and how, through intention, you can create more ritual in your life. Bringing intention into our lives is a great way to promote greater mindfulness, compassion, contentment, and joy. When we stop to cherish our daily moments we cannot help but connect deeper with the present moment, which eventually leads us to greater happiness and wellbeing.