Locked Into a Routine
A friend of mine, a salaryman, who was visiting my
workroom the other day commented on one aspect of my life-style, "You
are quite fortunate in being able to work at your own pace. You are
not 'caught in a rut' like me, taking the same train at the same
time, following exactly the same routine every day."
I listened to what he had to say, but then,
remembering a little episode that had happened just that very
morning, wondered if I was really as 'free' as he thought ...
As usual, I had gone to the local pool for my
daily swim, as usual, getting there just a couple of minutes before
the building opened. As usual, I chatted a bit with the same people
who are there every day, and then just as usual, bought my ticket and
headed into the locker room. But there, the 'just as usual' sequence
came to an end. Instead of ... 'just as usual, I opened locker #0107
and put my clothes inside ...', I found that one of the staff members
was using #0107, and I had to cross the room and use a different
one.
Now of course, all these lockers are exactly
alike, and it doesn't make any difference at all which one I choose.
Why then, did I feel a burst of irritation to find that my daily
routine wasn't running 'just as usual'?
Unlike my salaryman friend, who really has no
choice but to take the same train each day, etc. etc., I am quite
free to choose a different locker ... or arrive at the pool at a
different time ... or vary my behaviour in any number of ways, if I
so wish. But I don't. Even with such freedom available to me, I still
find myself following a 'rut' just as deep as that in which my friend
is travelling. So deep that just a simple thing as finding that
locker #0107 was in use, was an irritant!
Are we humans so dependent on familiarity ... on
stability, that even when we are free to alter our patterns
continuously, we avoid doing so, but instead choose to stay with the
familiar and safe? Or is it just that I am such a boring,
unadventurous person? Perhaps I'd better not probe too deeply into
this. I might not like to hear the answer to that question ...
I thought about these things the next time I
approached the pool again. The locker room was empty. Can you guess
... did I use locker #0107 ... or did I choose another one?
I'm not going to tell you!